Yes, I too hate the thought of wiping out beneficial bugs as I stated before. Using chemical insecticides in isolated areas helps me get more of a level playing field to try other remedies. However, even soaps are not selective in choosing which bugs they will kill. I also think that control of fireants in residential developments is different from broad control over acres and acres of property. I don't pretend to know or practice all the correct organic prevention. Heck! I can't even keep the spider mites off the indoor potted mums I bought for my wife.:confused3:
Here is how I think about it. Maybe someone can point out where my thinking is flawed.
When volcanos erupt and cover an area with lava and ash, bacteria, and cockroaches are the first things that get restablished. I would bet fireants would be there almost as fast as the cockroaches, if they were living in the area, pre-eruption.
So now, we use chemicals to "level the playing ffield", but we know we are also taking out the beneficial insects. If the fireants will be able to re-establish quickly, or at least much more quickly than the beneficial beings, all the chemicals did was give the fireants a better shot at getting themselves a foothold.
I agree about not being able to treat the pastures as easily as one could a city lot. When I put out the nematodes, I put them out in the lawn, and in the area surrounding the lawn. I let nature do the rest, sort of like fly predators. Within a couple of years, the rest of the 31 acres had less fireant mounds and I could walk around the barn and stock tank without getting into the ants.
However, the little beings need some rainfall to be able to survive and get into the mounds and eat the fireants. This drought has not been kind for our State, in the fireant department. Believe me, I am seeing them this year too, in numbers that I haven't seen, since before the nematode application, several years ago. When we finally get a year that we get enough rain to fill my stock tank in the Springtime, I'll reapply the little critters, over an acre or so, and hope the rainfall continues and helps me from there.
As a tidbit, I often wear rubber boots when working where where the fireants might be. For some reason, the ants don't seem to like to climb up the rubber. Had someone from South Texas tell me that, before we had so many fireants in our neck of the woods. I won't say you can't or won't get had by them, but they won't get you in the numbers like they do otherwise, and oftentimes, you can get the chores done, unscathed.
