How to deal with ants in strawberries

How to get rid of ants on strawberries is a question that worries all gardeners. Pests love to build their nests in the roots of these plants and eat sweet berries. And on soft leaves they plant aphids. Strawberry bushes cease to bear fruit and quickly die.

Humane methods

Fighting ants can be humane. After all, it is not necessary to destroy insects if their colony did not have time to grow. Do not forget about the benefits that ants bring.

The best way is to move the ant nest away from the garden. The procedure should be performed in late spring or early summer, when there are still few inhabitants in the anthill. The transfer of pest dwellings consists of several stages:

1. Dig out carefully anthill along with eggs and larvae.
2. Put it in a bucket.
3. Pour a dug out nest away from summer cottages.

Expel migrants from the summer cottage follows before ten in the morning or after six in the evening. At this time, foragers are still inside their home.

On a note!

If you had to dig out part of the bushes of strawberries and wild strawberries, then after the procedure, cover the soil with a stalk that was pulled out of the ground. Ash is poured into the place where the anthill was located.

So that insects do not crawl out of the bucket, it is lubricated with sunflower oil. Hands off ant bites protect rubber gloves, which should also be oiled.

If the colony is small, but located in strawberry bushes, then the ants should be scared away. The following methods are used for this:

1. Among the plants lay the leaves of parsley, wormwood, mint, tansy, mustard.
2. Pour sawdust soaked in aniseed oil under the bushes.
3. Lay cotton swabs soaked with turpentine near the anthill.

Fighting ants in strawberries in such ways is effective if they do not have time to breed or when the berry has time to ripen.

Folk remedies

You can protect strawberries from the attack of pests by various folk remedies. Sweet are effective baitthat the workers themselves feed the female and the larvae. The most popular recipes with brown or boric acid:

• two glasses of water with sugar and ½ teaspoon of boric acid;
• matchbox of borax powder, a table boat of honey, 100 ml of water and 125g of sugar.

The poisonous mixture is applied to the lids and laid out near the anthills.

Save strawberries from ants will help yeast. They are mixed with honey or jam and laid out on ant trails.

On a note!

You need to take a fresh product, which has not expired.

If the anthill is located not on the bed with strawberries, but away from it, then it should be dug up, and the earth should be filled with boiling water or vegetable oil.

A nest located near the bushes is destroyed in one of the following ways:

1. Mounds regularly sprinkled with soda, ash or quicklime.
2. The nest is watered with a solution prepared from a liter of water, five grams soda and 30 grams of flax oil.

Birds, which should be attracted to the site, will help to remove ants from the beds of strawberries. And ladybugs will become the best fighters against aphids - they are collected in the field and planted on the affected bushes.

Before flowering, strawberries can be treated with a solution ammonia or kerosene - take a tablespoon of the product in a bucket of water. If ants are wound up in strawberries, the pungent smell will scare them away.

Insecticides

Various chemicals are used in the strawberry bed. Well established Muratsid, which is a food bait and is available in granules. It is poured directly into the anthill, from which the top layer of soil is removed before the procedure. Other drugs based on diazinon also help in getting rid of ants:

• Ant-eater;
• Ant.

You can use on strawberry beds gel Great Warrior. It should be applied to a piece of cardboard or a plastic cover. It is worth watching that the gel does not wash out the water, otherwise it will cease to act.

Apply such remedies for ants on strawberries:

• Tanrek;
• Biotlin;
• Bison

The spray solution is prepared according to the instructions. Processing plants is carried out before flowering in dry and calm weather.

On a note!

Chemicals are dangerous to humans. Therefore, before work, you need to protect your hands and face. After the procedure, clothes must be washed separately from other things.

Chemicals can not be sprayed on strawberry flowers and berries, otherwise they will become poisonous. The substance itself must be stored away from children and animals.

Prevention

The easiest way to carry out prevention. Then you do not have to destroy the anthills and watch how the ants eat strawberries. Near the bushes of berries, it is recommended to plant onions, garlic and mint. These plants have a pungent smell, which don't like insects.

Interesting!

For every four strawberry bushes, one bulb should be planted.

Strawberry protection can be provided by garlic solution. To prepare it, take a bucket of water and 100 grams of crushed garlic. Means insist a week. For the best effect, add two tablespoons of boric acid and 400 grams of coniferous extract.

Ant paths need to be constantly bombarded salt. The substance can also be filled in the anthill itself.

Completely remove ants from the beds difficult. Insects from time to time will appear on the bushes and build nests. But this does not mean that you need to forget about protecting strawberries from pests. If you constantly carry out measures to combat insects, then the crop will be able to save.