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tenacious ants

frensclanfrensclan Posts: 119
in Problem solving
I  have ants farming aphids on my stepover apple tree. The tree has only been in about 2yrs and has yet to fruit. The horizontal branch is only about 6" from the ground and i  have tried the Vaseline method I found in an old discussion on this site with no success. Can anyone advise? unfortunately i am on a terraced slope positively teeming with ants but they do not seem to bother with my other stepovers or cordon trees.  

Posts

  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    It will be tricky with a step-over as you need to prevent ants from climbing up to the leaves in any way they can (eg the supports - even a single blade of grass would be enough!)  As everything is so accessible, I think your best bet would be to control the aphids by hand.  Then follow the ants back to their nest and keep thoroughly watering that area and hope they move their nest and forget about that particular tree in the process.  If you can locate the nest area, ant nematodes will work better than just large amounts of water in moving them on.
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • frensclanfrensclan Posts: 119
    Many thanks for this advice Bob, I will do as you suggest and hopefully by next year I will have some fruit. Stay safe
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