Take the Fire Out of Fire Ants & Smells of Summer Information

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Articles submitted by: Eddie Ayers, County Extension AgentTake the Fire Out of Fire Ants

I hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day Holiday and had a chance to reflect on why it was created. Since it is the unofficial start of summer activities, you may have been outside. Did you notice any dirt mounds that are home to fire ants? If so, now is the time to work on controlling these pesky varmints.

As you well know fire ants are aggressive. They will attack anything that disturbs their mound. Hundreds of worker ants come to the surface to defend their home. Unsuspecting victims can be covered rapidly with ants. The ants anchor themselves with their mouthparts and then sting repeatedly. Venom injected through their sting causes burning and itching and often forms a white pustule.

Brought into Alabama from South America by mistake in the 1930’s, red imported fire ants arrived in Georgia in the 1950’s. The ants have spread into all areas of our state. The average fire ant colony contains 100,000 to 500,000 workers. Most mounds contain only one egg-laying queen, however multiple queen colonies are occurring in some parts of Georgia.

Many folks find home remedies work best to try to control fire ants and while these methods often appear to work, they are rarely able to control fire ants. Usually the ant colony simply moves to a new location, or the queen and a few workers remain hidden underground. Gasoline is found by many to work best. Yes, it is true that fire ant colonies do not survive a good drenching of gasoline but consider the danger you place yourself and your land in using gasoline. Not only does gasoline kill the ants, it kills the grass as well as pollutes the soil you may want to grow something in years from now. Grits do not work well either. There is no scientific research that supports the claim that when ants eat grits, they swell and rupture their stomachs. Colonies that are regularly disturbed or knocked down may move, but most “home” methods do not completely eliminate the ants. Then what can one do?

Actually ridding one’s lawn or pasture of fire ants is not technically, environmentally, or economically feasible. You can temporarily control the varmints with chemicals, however you must apply them periodically for as long as you want control. If you stop treatment, fire ants will probably return as newly mated queens from surrounding areas move in. During treatment, do not disturb the mound; because of their defense mechanisms, the ants will protect the queen when the mound is disturbed and the colony will survive. The key to controlling the mound is killing the queen.

A few “organic” insecticides like boric acid, pyrethrins and rotenone can be used. You can also suppress fire ants with boiling water. About three gallons of hot water poured on each mound will eliminate about 60 percent of the mound. This works best around well, surface water, or in vegetable gardens. Then there’s chemical control that can be done in several ways. A thorough surface application along trails in and around homes can reduce the number of foraging ants and treating individual mounds through an insecticide drench kills mounds immediately, but be careful handling the concentrate and avoid contact with it. There’s also granular products that work well, but it may take several days before the entire colony has been killed. Dusting mounds with an approved insecticide formula is another option but there again, it takes about a week to kill all the ants.

Now bait products are one of the most common methods. Place food such as potato chips around the mound and if the ants cover it up quickly, they are foraging and the bait product will work. You would then apply baits around the mounds or over a large area, however time is required for this method to be an effective kill. And depending on what is used, you need to wait about one week, up to possibly six weeks, after treatment to see results. Always remember to read and follow the label directions any time you use pesticides and if you need more information about fire ants, contact me at the Gilmer UGA Extension office.

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Smells of Summer

By: Eddie Ayers, County Extension Agent

Last week I was at Rock Eagle for 4-H camp. We had a great week, plus I got to visit with fellow agents about what is happening in their neck of the woods. One of them was Paul Pugliese from Bartow County. We discussed invasive plants and he shared this article with me.

If you’ve driven down the road in north Georgia lately, you were likely overwhelmed with a combination of fragrance from wild Japanese honeysuckle and Chinese privet. Many people assume they are native because they are so common, but neither one belongs on this continent. Both originated in Asia and were introduced to North America in the 1800s for ornamental uses in landscaping.

The success of these plants, growing literally everywhere, is attributed to the fact that they have prolific, seedy berries that are consumed and disseminated by birds. You will find them growing along almost every fence in Georgia because that’s where birds like to perch.

These two weedy plants are actually more invasive and ubiquitous than the renowned kudzu, or the “vine that ate the South.” For comparison, kudzu only covers an estimated 227,000 acres in Southern forests. Privet species cover roughly 3.2 million acres in Southern forests. Japanese honeysuckle covers more than 10.3 million acres of Southern forests.

Chinese privet is a large, semi-evergreen shrub that can grow 15 to 20 feet high. The thicket-forming shrubs can be found along bottomland forests, fences, flood plains, river edges and open field edges, where they crowd out native plants and trees.

Because privet grows so quickly, it was introduced as a landscape shrub and commonly planted as a privacy hedge. Occasionally, you will still find both plants still sold at garden centers. These varieties also grow aggressively if left unpruned.

The tiny white flowers of Chinese privet are formed in clusters along the tips of the branches. Privet flowers are extremely fragrant. Some people find the odor pleasant, while others find it overpowering. The fragrance is so strong and distinct that it can be detected from inside a car traveling at 55 miles per hour.

Another invasive plant that has left an indelible mark on Georgia’s landscape is Japanese honeysuckle. As children, we would pick the flowers while waiting at the school bus stop and bite off the stalks to sip the nectar. The leaves of honeysuckle are semi-evergreen, hairy, rounded and smooth along the edges. The first leaves of the season often show a lobed edge.

Honeysuckle flowers are white, pink or pale yellow in color with an extremely sweet fragrance. There are also native honeysuckle species that are less aggressive. Native honeysuckle is usually distinguished by having a more reddish stem and hairless leaves.

Japanese honeysuckle vines can climb as high as 80 feet into forest canopies and form a dense ground cover. Honeysuckle’s dense growth crowds out native vegetation and reduces the variety of native plants available for wildlife. The vines strangle, stunt or kill native trees.

Because privet and honeysuckle are so common and admired for their flowers, most people don’t realize their dark side as invasive weeds. A recent issue of National Geographic magazine stated, “Invasive species are the second greatest threat to worldwide species extinction – second only to habitat destruction. The devastation caused by non-native, invasive organisms is one of the most serious and least-recognized tragedies of our time.”

There’s no turning back for those invasive species that are already here. For information about controlling these and other invasive plants, go to http://invasive.org/eastern/srs/

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