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).
They can't manage to pass over a plastic "skirt" when tied around trees:
cut a strip of reasonably durable plastic - a few cms longer than the girth
of the tree, and about 20 cms wide. Wrap the strip around the trunk below
the first branch and tie it with a string towards the bottom of the
plastic. Then fold the plastic down to make a skirt. This works wonderfully
as long as the plastic doesn't collapse and touch the tree, or a plant
stalk of some sort makes a bridge on or above the skirt. Requires checking
periodically, but really does the trick.
What doesn't work: herbs that supposedly work for ants in the house:: like
mint, etc. The leaf cutters devoured them. Sesame leaves... ditto. They
also LOVE hibiscus and are now quite happily devoted to erasing a mound of
cut branches which I left from last year's crop (i was going to compost
them but if this saves this year hibiscus' crop I'll make this a practice).
Intercropping hibiscus within the corn also didn't work... although maybe
if I had planted the corn earlier????
People absolutely swear by the approach of putting ant manure from a
"foreign" anthill in or beside or on top of the anthill you want gone.
Some add that you have to get it from another city/state whatever to ensure
that it is REALLY a foreign anthill. Supposed to cause internal caos, civil
war, bloody massacres, etc. But it just hasn't worked for me, must have
pacifist ants.
Two strategies which I haven't yet ruled out... pouring najayote (the
liquid left over when boiling maize to make tortillas - a very alcaline
substance) down the anthill. This obviously creates an alkaline
environment, and the ants didn't appreciate it much, they closed old
openings and made new ones. But I think you have to do this repeatedly for
weeks, or get thousands of liters at once (quite possible in Mexico). Ant
hills are long systems, and I would bet they have elevated places for their
fungi -like gophers- to prevent flooding problems.
The other is sprinkling ground charcoal around the holes - supposedly
messes up their sense of smell and they don't identify the food source.
Perhaps this could work for protecting newly germinating plants, don't
think it works if it's applied after they've found what they've looked for...
Other thoughts... my soil is slightly on the alkaline side, so I don't want
to pour lime down the anthills, and acid-loving fungus could be a good
thing. Also, the ants are making very loose soil out of rather compacted
stuff. So if I can just keep them busy on the hibiscus plants... but this
is wishful thinking, they do like a varied diet, besides those mentioned
above... basil, young tomato plants, okra, sorghum, chives, motherwort.
Have left the brassica and cucurbita (sp?) families alone... Unfortunately,
the climate is poor for brassicas and the white flies love the cucurbitas...
good luck and PUL-LEASE report back if you find other ideas....
george anna
At 10:24 a.m. 08/06/2004, you wrote:
I am working in tropical agriculture in Panama and would like to know
information for controlling leaf-cutter ants