permaculture

["Mike Barnett" <dreadlox@cwjamaica.com>]

This was a very very nice mail... I enjoyed it thoroughly...


Have you ever thought of trying neem oil to repel them?
What about using a very strong essential oil...that messes up their
smell...garlic eucalyptus, peppermint, lemongrass?

Injecting Boiling water into the nest..??
Black Plastic barrier around the field...?
Sand around tree trunks?
Scent barrier around trees/plants that you want...
How "permaculture" is the use of boric acid as a deterrent? Soak some citrus
peels in that and let them bring that home? I use the same trick but I mix
some sardine oil with banana, and then add some sugar to make a syrup, mix
with boric acid? It works for me with all the other ants, and my mix draws
them out of every crevice...the take it home to feed the others and soon no
more ants...

What about using beneficial fungii that could be cultured from healthy
rotting wood that can counteract their fungi in the breakdown of
material...(maan those ants would go nuts, if fungii would just "mushroom"
ooutta knowwhere....especially in their storeroom??!!) Spray/inject that
culture into the perimeter and "heart" of their nests...

What about a bacteria that attacks the ants, their eggs, or the rotting food
stores?

Natural pest? (Rent-an-anteater??)

( I Loved the suggestion of changing ph....!!)
What about bitterwood extracts....check out quassia (active ingredient
quassine) to spray around your good plants..

Anyone have similar ideas from keeping away goats out of my plants??
Any tried and true ideas? Offline ideas welcome too...



PS. (sorry if the boric acid is outta line... Im still learning...)

Mike
JAMAICA


----- Original Message -----
From: "George Anna Clark" <esac@laneta.apc.org>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 3:02 PM
Subject: [permaculture] leaf cutter ants


> Vaya, Jason, good question... I'm in south central Mexico with the same
> "problem" - it ties for first with the white fly as our most economically
> damaging pest.
>
> What I've learned... the cut leaves are for feeding acid-loving fungi in
> the ant hills. Thus, they love to carry citris peel down into their ant
> hills, and prefer this to just about anything else. This worked for me as
> long as I had a neighborhood "fast-food fruit vendor" and  the time to
pick
> up a bucketful of peels per day (long time ago).
>