Sunday, May 20, 2012

Fire Ants

I been having trouble getting my corn started in garden #4. I can only get my peanut plants started in that garden box so far. I noticed I have quite an army of ants taking up residence in that plot. Therefore, I started googling organic ant controls. This is what I have tried so far and how well or not so well it worked:

Orange Oil: I mixed 2oz per gallon of water. This kills ants on contact. I noticed it takes multiple treatments and it works better with 1Tbsp. molasses mixed in. However, they keep packing up and moving so I know it's not penetrating deep enough in the soil. Also, do not get this on your veggies, because it will burn the plant. I couldn't get them under control and this will kill other bugs it contacts good and bad.

Boiling Water: This again kills ants on contact. However, just like the orange oil it never seems to penetrate deep enough and seems to just make them nomadic.

Cinnamon: No effect I could see.

Spinosad: Mixed four Tbsp per gallon of water and poured on mound. This took about four days to work, but got rid of all fire ants in garden #4.

Green Light Fire Ant Control w/Conserve (AKA Spinosad): This is a granular bait with Spinosad which they brand name Conserve. This got rid of all the ants in garden #2 which were scattered and I could find the mound. This also took about four days to complete it's deadly elimination.

My recommendations for knocking off fire ants are to use Spinosad mixed with water and pour the whole gallon on the mound. If you just have some scattered fire ants use the Green Light Fire Ant Control with Conserve granules. Note: this only kills fire and harvester ants. This doesn't effect any other ants.

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