North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Stephen Sadler" <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>]

Yes, Donna, d-limonene works against ants, including fire ants.  It's in
many orange oil products.  When we've had house ants, I just use my
orange-oil air freshener.  The d-limonene would need to reach the beasts.
It will kill within minutes of contact, but the contact part is problematic;
a "drench and puncture" method is recommended. But it doesn't dissolve the
skeletons - I wonder if that was a citric acid product?  

Lori, I hadn't heard of the grain mites. There have been releases of phorid
flies, which decapitate the ants, and a protozoan ant pathogen.  Of the more
readily available treatments, I think if I had a widespread problem, I might
try a spinosad bait. 

This is an interesting overview of "sustainable" methods of fire ant
control: http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/fireant.html
Some of the methods discussed are organically approved, others are not.  But
if the question isn't as much allowable-for-certified-organic as it is
what's-safe-and-effective, this might have some practical information.  

~ Stephen

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of larizzo@charter.net
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 12:34 PM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Ant control

After having lived in College Station, TX (home of Texas A&M university) for
20 years, I'll say the fire ants have a definite edge and have devastated a
variety of wildlife, including upland birds, rabbits, etc.  I have lived
with fire ants in my beds for years, and haven't found much that gets them
for long - nothing organic, most recently.  The problem is, they've
developed multiple queen colonies which are not observable as "mounds"
anymore - they forage throughout the grass and it's hard to control them
without simply spraying the whole area.  People used to treat for them, now
most of my old neighbors have given up.  Boiling water does work, but only
on mounds - and it does a job on your grass.  Some people use gasoline - and
even torch the mounds.  I'm not sure about d-limonene - have seen it used
for fleas but it doesn't work that well for them.  At least the fire ants
kill fleas, so my dogs like it.  I used Amdro for a long time - but couldn't
afford it after about 20
 04.  You used to be able to get it in bulk from the extension service.  

Organically, you could try grain mites - they are a parasite to fire ants
and for awhile they were doing research on using them on a wider scale.

Lori - who left TX to get away from fire ants (but now have them in my
county!)
Maryville, TN  Zone 7
---- Donna &/or Kieran <holycow@cookeville.com> wrote: 
>     Limonene works against fire ants??!!   That explains the product I
heard of that seemed to disappear off t.he market, that used citrus to
dissolve their exoskeletons,