Last month I noticed that a two foot section of sugar snap peas had been cut down almost to the ground. I inspected the damage expecting to see evidence of squirrels or some other mammal, but instead discovered that my arch-nemesis, the leaf cutting ant, had returned. I saw them methodically carrying away pieces of pea leaves, bigger than their own bodies.
I have a leaf cutting ant nest somewhere on my property, probably underneath my front porch. I can’t determine the exact location of the nest because their tunnels can extend a hundred feet or more. I’ve written about the ants before here, and have mostly learned to live with them. They remain dormant most of the time, but make appearances several times a year. Each time that they emerge they choose one type of plant to eat, ignoring the other vegetation. This time it was peas.
Peas plants damaged by leaf cutting ants.
Because the ants don’t actually eat the leaves, but instead use them to grow fungus, most insect controls don’t work on them. For example, both Noel and I have had excellent results spraying neem oil on our plants to control leaf eating insects. But for the neem to be effective, the insects must ingest it. This doesn’t happen with the ants.
Luckily this time I noticed the ant outbreak before they had destroyed all of the peas. I found that they had only tunneled into the pea bed in one location. I poured orange oil into the hole. I returned to the bed two days later and did not see any further damage. I did, however, find about a dozen ants wandering around the bed still carrying now shriveled pieces of leaf. Apparently I had severed their only connection with the mother colony.
Leaf cutting ant tunnel entrance.
I won one round in my struggle with the ants. But I know that they will be back. And from past experience, I also know that they usually get what they want.
You might also try sprinkling black pepper in and around your pea plants. We use that to discourage sugar ants that we get regularly in the spring. It works well for us.
Interesting post. Thanks for sharing. DE dusted on and around the plants might help as well.
I will be interested to see how you deal with these pests over time. My goal has always been to keep the damage to a minimum. I have found preditors for most of pests, but ants, that would be anew one for me. I am anxious to see how you solve this, or combat the problem.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve tried diatomaceous earth (DE) as well as several other control methods with leaf cutting ants in past years with no noticeable effect. I’ve used BugBarrier Tree Bands, http://www.treebands.com/home, to protect my fruit trees with great success, but they need to wrap around a trunk and don’t work with garden plants.
Amdro has a product called “Ant Block” recommended for leaf cutter ants and it works. I have been dealing with these for 35 years and this is the first thing that actually works. If you don’t use pesticides, sorry.
Ok everybody try this. In a quart size spray bottle add one packet of dry active yeast. When you find the ants harvesting your roses, peaches or crape myrtles spray the ants and their bounty with this yeast water mix. Let them take this home to mama, I just started this last week and found it to have impressive stopping power, I am dealing with 5 new holes per day. My hopes are to ruin the food cache with this new yeast thus killing the colony. Spray the ground around your plants also. The colony that’s been eating on me cant be located just the new holes. I am adding just a pinch of sugar to help it stick and feed the yeast.
I have been plagued with leaf cutter ants for a lifetime and tried everything the extension agent suggested, near zero results, new hole and a new charge of ants next day. I probably killed some ants but stopped nothing. In researching I found an article on the net from Guatemala/Costa Rica area and they used yeast. I’ll try anything at this point right so I took some yeast put it in a cheap spray bottle and coated the ant pack train and the hole, they went back in the hole and have not returned. I have hopes the yeast will grow along their tunnel and ruin/contaminate their food cache (fungus) deep in the bowels of the earth. I also sprayed around the base of the roses, peaches and crape myrtles. I’m two weeks into this experiment and I think it has as good if not better results in keeping them off my stuff as compared to the powders or pesticide sprays used to date. Plus I feel good using it around the pets, chickens etc,,, It does not kill anything by contact.