2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Have ants appeared on your site? Small insects scurry back and forth, build an anthill, constantly drag something into it. What to do? Sound the alarm and try to destroy uninvited guests, or put up with and watch from the outside for their active life? To make the right decision, it is important to know what harm and what benefits ants bring and, after weighing all the pros and cons, make a decision that will benefit your garden plot and the plants on it
So let's start with the benefits of ants.
The benefits of ants
Are there any benefits at all? Yes, and a lot. First, ants destroy harmful insects such as caterpillars, spider mites, thrips, and so on. For normal life, a large anthill needs about 1 kilogram of insects per day. Can you imagine how many pests they will destroy? In order to remove the same amount from the garden with the help of special chemicals, it will be necessary to carry out treatment with poisons at a frequency of about once a week. Otherwise, very often it can lead to the fact that the soil is saturated with chemicals and it will take a long time until they are washed out of it.
The passages dug by ants in the nest allow air to penetrate deep into the soil and enrich it with oxygen. In addition, ant tunnels create very good conditions for the reproduction and development of various beneficial microorganisms that live in the soil and help improve soil fertility. That is, ants indirectly help to increase the fertile soil layer. You can cope with this without ants, of course, you just have to regularly carry out thorough and deep loosening of the soil.
In addition to all of the above, ants also fertilize the soil. It is especially important that they fill the soil with phosphorus, which is almost impossible to obtain without the use of chemical fertilizers. I will clarify which microelements the soil receives from the presence of ants - these are 2 important elements responsible for the development and flowering of plants: potassium and phosphorus. Moreover, if the amount of potassium increases only 2 times, then phosphorus becomes as much as 10 times more. This is due to excrement, which enriches the soil with the above substances.
Harm from the presence of ants on the site
Ants do the main and greatest harm with their love for aphids. Aphids appear wherever there are ants. If these small insects have settled on the site, they will definitely "drive" the aphids. This means that you have to deal with aphids. Of course, aphids can appear without the participation of ants, but in this case it is easier to deal with it, since there is no one to reproduce it.
In addition, there are more weeds in places where ants live than in areas without these insects. The explanation is simple: ants carry various seeds to their storage facilities, including weed seeds. And some of them sprout, polluting our site. By the way, one of the most favorite seeds of ants are celandine seeds. And if at least one or two bush of celandine appears on the site, then the fight against them will be difficult, since celandine multiplies very quickly and fills the entire site.
If the ants decide to settle in the roots of the tree, then it is definitely - the destruction of the nest, it is enough to destroy it and the ants will go to another place. Why is it necessary to destroy the nest? Ants, building passages and pantries in the roots of trees, harm them and within 2-3 years from the moment the anthill appears, the tree dies.
Another harm is that during the ripening of berries and fruits, ants love to feast on them and thereby spoil the ripe fruits.
Now you know what the pros and cons of the appearance of ants on your site are and you can make a deliberate decision: leave them or destroy the nest so that the little laborers leave your garden.
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