Nurseries

Red imported fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) feed on most organic materials to satisfy their nutritional needs, including other insects, animals, and plants. Take advantage of the most effective fire ant treatment for nurseries by calling the professionals at Fire Ant Specialists. Unlike other topical treatments that can permanently damage your soil and grass, our granular bait goes straight to the source.

Problems Caused by Fire Ants

Fire ants are harmful to nursery plants, trees, and field operations in many different ways:

• They venture into your nursery seeking warmth, moisture and food sources to meet the colony’s need for fat and protein;
• They tunnel into the base of young plant stalks;
• They feed on germinating seeds and seedlings;
• They feed on the buds and fruits of numerous crop plants, especially okra, corn, and soybean;
• They can cause girdling and kill young, tender plants and trees, depriving them of nutrients and allowing the root systems to be exposed to the air, drying them out;
• They collect plant seeds and scatter them around their mounds, causing them to be distributed across the landscape;
• They compete with and kill native beneficial organisms, such as bees and native ants;
• They attack bees and interfere with pollination;
• Their hardened mounds can be tall enough to damage field equipment and slow down nursery operations;
• They require nurseries in quarantine zones to certify proper fire ant treatment (with a USDA “ant stamp”) before transporting nursery stock and grass sod;
• Their painful stings can cause medical problems for field workers.

The Fire Ant Specialists Solution

Fire ants build nests outdoors in mounds of soil and live beneath them in elaborate networks of underground tunnels where the queens reproduce rapidly (laying 1,500 to 5,000 eggs per day). Even when you don’t see them, they are expanding right under your feet, and thousands of them can live in a single fire ant colony.

Our potent, food-like granular bait is regulated and approved for use on public and private lands. It is approved for use around people, pets, livestock, in nurseries, and on pastures, hay fields and farmland.

It contains an insect growth regulator that will sterilize the egg-producing queen(s). Worker ants eat the bait and carry it down into the colony, causing the fire ants to die naturally.  Once the queen has been sterilized, the entire colony will disappear, and no new ants will be born.

With the exception of calling licensed and trained pest management professionals like Fire Ant Specialists, there is no “best way” to kill these destructive ants. The solution is to identify them quickly and take action to minimize the damage they can cause to humans, animals and your nursery.