Fire Ants

gardenchick

Hi all..I am new to this forum..Not sure I'm posting this Q in the right section, but here it goes. I have a 17 foot Thuja that was just planted. Problem is, when the tree guys that came to plant it took the casing off, they noticed fire ants all over the root ball. They said these ants would not hurt the tree. Is this true? I'm getting conflicting info. I do not know anything really about fire ants except that they're bite hurts! I have a man coming monday to put some asphid? out...Will this work to kill them? Do you think damage has been done to the root ball? I'm a bit worried about them invading the rest of my property. The manager of the place that I purchased the tree from is not in till Saturday..I'll be calling to complain then.



Anna

Eric Frei

Jeez, here you need a permit and inspection before moving soil around because of fire ants .... no wonder in the USA they spread like crazy with that sort of conduct.

Ring your local fire ant people, council etc .... this just doesn't sound right to disperse a known pest.

We have pretty much contained the one and only outbreak of the pest here in Brisbane, all from one container coming into the country. The ants soon spread all around as stuff was moved. Yes potentially the whole country may have got fire ants here all from a few.

As far as the ants damaging trees I'm not so sure as the farmers were worried about the impacts of fire ants on their crops, they do damage to crops.

Frequently asked questions about fire ants (Primary Industries & Fisheries, Queensland)

Texas Imported Fire Ant Research and Management Project

http://www.hear.org/alienspeciesinha...heet_lores.pdf

Red Imported Fire Ant Management Guidelines--UC IPM

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gardenchick

Thanks for the quick reply....I am not happy...I hope the manager I speak with on Monday will offer to resolve the problem. In the meantime, I went and purchased some fire ant food...Supposedly, the worker ants take back to the queen..Makes her sterile..they starve..etc. I have a bug guy coming Monday to put asphid? down as well. Not sure what else I can do?

Anna

windthrown

Red Imported Fire Ants (RIFA) are endemic to the southern US now, and they have been here since their introduction in the 1930's. The USDA has pretty much given up any hope of ever controlling them. They are doing trials using phroid flies to control RIFA in Texas, but success seems to be limited to local areas where the flies are released and the local RIFA inoculated with them. RIFA are in Southern California now too. California also has one giant colony of Argantine ants as well. They do not sting like fire ants, but they do a lot of tree and plant damage.

RIFA are not believed to kill plants directly by eating or chewing on them, but like many other types of ants, they can and do greatly diminsh plant health and vigor by farming aphids, scale and mealy bugs that suck on plant stems, leaves and roots. You can use Tanglefoot spread in a ring around the base of trees, which is a really stickey substance that the ants get stuck in and cannot crawl across. I would spray something like Dursban on them myself, as I did for the Argantine ants on my property in Northern California. I was stung by a colony of red imported fire ants after walking across a lawn in Alabama once. Never again!

TreeSpecialist

To answer the first question, no the ants won't hurt the tree. At least not directly.

Amdro®?fire ant bait is all you need to control them.

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