permaculture

[paul wheaton <paul@richsoil.com>]

Take lots of pictures!

On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 4:21 PM, Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I have seen many examples of how ants nurture aphids, but what I saw today 
> still surprised me.  The ants had built mud structures around my artichoke 
> plants (stalks and leaves) so that whitish ants that normally only colonize 
> the roots could feed on the plant’s green parts even in cold weather.  They 
> built delicate earth walls around the stalks to about a foot above ground 
> and started to plaster the artichoke leaves with mud to a height of two to 
> three feet. In the part they had completed, there was a narrow hollow space 
> between the plant and the mud walls so that the ants could circulate freely 
> for milking the aphids.
>
>
> The ants also already nurture colonies of aphids on the citrus trees, 
> something they normally only do in March or April when the weather gets 
> warmer.  They also collected much of the wheat I had broadcast into the 
> fields.  Normally, I can broadcast seeds without soil cover from 
> mid-November because the ants stay underground during the winter.  I have 
> never seen ants that active by mid-December.
>
> Looks like ants and aphids are adapting well to climate change. Are we?
>
> Dieter Brand
> Portugal
>
>
>
>
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