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so interesting!! i've been googling it and there's pics and everything of ants farming aphids!! wierd nature in action! and it's happening all over one of our apple trees. i've jet washed the bu**ers off with the hose and put DE around the trunk and we'll see how that goes. how do other people cope with this problem?

Yes I found this out last year, or maybe the year before. It's fascinating isn't it.

I was suffering with the problem on my runner beans. I read ants don't like mint so I tied some bunches to the plants, mainly near the bottom. It seemed to work and I had a load of excess mint at the time. I saw ants crawling over my blackcurrant bushes today but don't have any mint. Can't see any blackfly though. Yet.

I find it quite fun to watch them. I've tried putting vaseline around the trunk but they always seem to find a way up. Very entertaining watching how they manage it. But no, I haven't found a way to stop them.

with this one example i have understood how just blasting the lot with pesticide would be counterproductive as aphids are at the bottom of the insect food chain and practically everything wants to eat them. so you've just got to control the marching ones. doesn't seem such a big deal now somehow as have just checked the apple and she's clear still. we were discussing whitewashing trunks as of course greeks do like to do that but i can't find anywhere that says its actually effective against ants.
Mint hey? that's a good ground coverer too so i could put some around a trunk or two. we do have a lot of trees though.

Don't underestimate ants on their own either.
I have a bad infestation in my greenhouse, which of course is the ideal spot for them to live. Normally I "annoy" them by stirring up the soil where they have decided to nest, so that they move on, but this year I seem to have loads more than usual.
So far they have killed one fully grown cauliflower plant, 2 tomato plants and are trying their hardest (and my patience) to kill a row of climbing French beans.
They nest around the roots below ground level and strip the bark (skin?) off the roots and stem and the first thing you notice is the plant keeling over, by which time it's too late.
Now that I realise what's going on I stirred the soil at the base of EVERY plant in the greenhouse and sprayed around each one with a commercial ant deterrent, and so far it seems to have worked.

Normally I hose them off, but this year with the hosepipe ban I don't know, perhaps all this rain will keep them at bay, otherwise I guess just pinching the tops off the broad beans. Later on the nasturtiums divert the blackflies attention away from the broad beans and other things.

I put shallow containers of jam on the ground around the broad beans and sometimes the ants will go for that and forget their aphids. This is then supposed to allow predators such as ladybirds and their larvae to get at the aphids without the ants protecting them.

One year it worked, another it didn't and I just had a swarm of honey bees who were eating me out of house and home jamwise. Well it's a way to use up all this jam.

If the ants aren't on a precious plant but in bare earth then boiling water does the trick, particularly if you can pour it directly into the nest.

Ants are fascinating creatures, I remember my final year supervisor was very interested in myrmecochory (seed dispersal by ants) and had identified several such relationships.

yes george, which is why i kind of go ouch at the boiling water thought. i guess they haven't annoyed me that much.....yet!

i had no idea ants were a problem for you plants.
i thought they just ate dead stuff and diddnt actually attack the plants.
iv got loads of ants in my veggy patch and iv just been weeding and had to prop up some of the tomato plants. maybe the ants have been at them. ill try to disturb the so they'll move on. i dont like the boiling water thing either.