Saturday, 20 June 2020
Wednesday, 17 June 2020
🎜 There's ants in the courgette, dirty little monsters 🎜
🎜 Farming all the aphids, drinking all the nectar 🎜
So I've been learning about ants farming aphids. Fascinating.
The aphids feed off the plants and produce a sweet nectar as a by-product. The ants love this, so they farm the aphids to keep the necar flowing. This involves the following:
- Protecting the aphids from predators.
- Immobilising them via chemicals or in some cases, biting their wings off (harsh).
- Carrying away dead ones to remove risk of disease.
- Relocating them to other plants when necessary.
Very impressive and interesting. I've managed to find a natural calcium spray which helps the plant and also makes it bitter tasting so apparently they will move on naturally. We shall see.
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Tuesday, 16 June 2020
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