First things first; be reminded the annual dinner meeting of the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District is Thursday, Aug. 11, at 7 p.m. at the Vicksburg City Auditorium.

It starts with a catfish dinner followed by recognition of local folks who have enhanced water quality and/or reduced soil erosion on their property.

Then, wildlife biologist Kevin Nelms will update us on progress to restore the native black bear population in Mississippi.

It’s $15 per person and the deadline to sign up is Tuesday, Aug. 9. Call 601-636-7679, Extension 3.

Changing topics, my place made it through most of July without two things; rain and fire ant mounds. Of course, the lack of the first led to the lack of the second.

With weeks of no ant mounds in sight, a man could be foolish enough to think his ant efforts in the spring totally paid off.

Well, no, not totally, but they helped.

Rain finally began July 26 and the morning of July 28. I treated 69 fresh pop-up mounds.

Ants were alive and well and reproducing where they wanted to be all along; in the ground.

The mounds were hurriedly built to move the babies and royal family up as water crept into rooms and tunnels.

I suggest keeping up the challenge to fire ants throughout the part of the year when ants make any activity, which they do when soil temperature is 60 degrees and higher.

Most years, that is from sometime in March until sometime in October, with a few days in February or November possible.

Personally, I use the mound treatment insecticide acephate applied to new mounds when I see them. The broadcast baits work almost as advertised but for those surrounded by open land, migrations of ants keep up with the slow acting baits.

In residential subdivisions, the key to using baits is to get all the neighbors to do it at the same time or nearly so.

Otherwise queens that lose the fight in one neighbor’s mounds are going to crawl to a new spot and they don’t respect property lines.

For neighbors who do want to do joint battle against ants, somebody Google the Texas Two-Step ant control suggestion that involves using baits followed by individual mound treatments in a coordinated effort.

I wish there were other choices for dealing with fire ants other than toxic insecticides or ignoring them and letting them have the yard. But this non-native insect has no biological enemies here. Research is still ongoing trying to find a biological and/or more effective answer. Grits don’t work because ants don’t digest solid food. And I am very skeptic of the claims of “season long control” on some of the legal insecticides that do kill ants.

Fire ants will be with me for life, even now when I am supposed to be on easy street. But there are worse things in life; macular degeneration, CD interest rates and the lack of a good quarterback for my college team.

 

Terry Rector is spokesman for the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District.