Ants Farming Aphids on My Okra - how nice!

[jrcomito]

We grow hot peppers and they have both aphid and ants on them. What do you mean when you say that the ants are "farming" the aphids?

[c1377]

Originally Posted by RedZone

When I was in Ag school our main professor would leave plants such as that alone for what he called a "trap crop". He said that some plants are genetically weak and shout out to the insect world, come and get me. The other plants in the row or bed were unaffected. I have done this ever since. Seems to work very well.

I found loads of small ants while weeding under my tomato plants this afternoon.
I am not sure what they are doing, but I am sure it is beneficial.

[RozieDozie]

Originally Posted by jrcomito

We grow hot peppers and they have both aphid and ants on them. What do you mean when you say that the ants are "farming" the aphids?

The ants eat the moisture/sap/honeydew produced by the aphids when they eat the plants so the ants keep them close by; even bite off their wings so they can't fly....

Here's an interesting article about it.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1009212548.htm

[Direct Sunlight]

Originally Posted by RozieDozie

Last year, it was so dry here that the ants ruined a lot of okra, no aphids involved.
They got into the corn, too, looking for moisture.

I've had the aphid/ant thing, too, on eggplant, especially. DE does help some, but the best is to keep washing off the aphids or wait for the lacewings and lady bugs to show up. Sometimes if I only have one or two plants involved, I'll leave them alone and wait for the predators. Wasps and yellow jackets will eat the ants, too. Never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself.

The okra was awful for me last year. The ants and aphids were all over them. There was corn next door; ants swarmed the few ears that I had growing. This year am growing less okra and no corn.

[TnTiger]

I've still got some ants on my okra - haven't seen too many aphids lately though. Fortunately the okra is doing just fine and we ate our first batch of grilled okra last night. It was wonderful!

[TnTiger]

I just got home from a 5 day trip and the ants and aphids have overtaken my okra. Some of the flower pods and leaves are literally covered in black they are so infested. The Clemson Spineless okra is at least 6 feet tall yet the ants are still happily marching up and down the stalks.

Fortunately, I also spotted a handful of lady bugs. In spite of the huge number of aphids & ants the okra is still producing and doesn't seem to be adversely affected so I'm going to take a wait and see approach for a little while. Another good thing is that the aphids don't seem to be going to the tomatoes or peppers - perhaps the okra sap is just so much sweeter than everything else that they really don't care about the other plants. Who knows.

[Direct Sunlight]

I've seen some spiders, but they don't seem to work fast enough to eat very many of the ants/aphids. I used dish soap the last couple of days-- think I've killed most of the aphids on the huckleberries and okra but am not sure. They don't go away easily.

[EmeraldSkye]

This is where I'll make my usual recommendation: The Bug Blaster. I heard about this on the radio a few years ago, got one, and it's my go-to solution for dealing with aphids, white flies (I used it today for these) and spider mites. No, I have no affiliation with the company. I just know it's a very effective, easy, and organic solution (it uses only water) for managing soft bodied pests. I used it on my asparagus today and while I was doing so I saw that there were a couple of young lady bugs that were there. They just held on and the spray didn't harm them at all, which is great.

Here's a link with some info: http://www.thebugblaster.com/

I have the longer one with the "heavy duty metal shut off valve" because I've heard of the cheaper plastic ones breaking too soon. If you already have a wand that you like you can just get the nozzle tip and use the wand you already have.

I hope this helps.

[TnTiger]

I have one and used it when I finally had time. It did a great job of cleaning off most of the aphids and aphid eggs and you're right - the lady bugs managed to hang on! I didn't get rid of everything since I wanted the lady bugs to stick around. Now a couple of weeks later I still have some aphids but also have lady bugs.

I'm one of the ones that had the broken shut-off valve on my bug blaster. They sent me a new valve but I haven't even used it yet because I added a shut off valve onto the end of the hose and it works just as well but I wish I had gotten the longer one in the beginning!

[EmeraldSkye]

Yeah, the longer wand is nice. It's too bad that they don't put the good valve on all of them.

I just came in from looking at my asparagus (I bug blasted it for white flies yesterday) and upon closer inspection I see a lot of lady bugs and lady bug larvae in the plants. Also a lace wing flew in as I was looking. I still have some white flies there but I'll see what these guys do to help and may blast the plants again in a few days. But I don't want to harm the larvae. I know the blaster doesn't harm the ladybugs but I don't really know about the larvae, and I don't want to harm them.

I also looked closer at my okra. I do have ants on the plants and the flowers (it seems like there have always been ants attracted to my okra) but so far I'm not seeing any aphids. I guess there's something about the flowers that they like but so far it doesn't seem to affect the okra growth and production. I'll keep an eye on things and once I see aphids I'll take care of that, but I guess I'll let the ants hang out as long as they aren't causing any harm. Last year I did see ants eating at the bases of the okra pods so at that time I put tanglefoot at the base of each plant. That stopped the ants from getting on the plants.