Can we talk about ants and termites?

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Spot & Bubby

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Runnels County, Texas
First it was red ants in May, then termites all summer, laying waste to our grass all over the ranch. I rode out a few paddox yesterday just to assess what we are left to work with. It's bad. Some paddocks are a near total loss except for Broom Sage and Nightshade.

Here's a picture of how it started in May with the ants. It's a panoramic photo. I highlighted the large and beds... six in a circle and a few beyond that. Where is zero grass in the circle of ants.

I have video, but I have to compress it. 20240523_201905~2.jpgI'm heart broken. This is going to hurt us.

any advice on fixing this? I'm headed to work, but I'll check in.

I'm in Runnels County, Tx, like my bio says. Just South of Abilene.
 
We had some simular problems this year. It's the ants that make a dirt casing around the grass. They eat it all. If you kick the dirt some will have grass in is and some it will be gone.

If its not grasshoppers, it's army worms, or these ants and I guess termites. They never hit the poor grass either. They know to go to your best grass at your best place.
 
We don't have termites here. I had no idea that termites would be a problem in anything other than wooden structures. Learn something new every day on here.
I do know that tillage reduces ant populations and can help with hoppers to a point. But we don't have these fire ants I hear of on this site.
 
Can you broadcast an ant insecticide like Amdro granules? My experience is very limited, I used some in my aunts yard in FL for fire ants. It seemed to work well.
 
They know to go to your best grass at your best place.
They didn't discriminate at all. They took a piece of everything. But I watched some of it disappear around me in critical pastures. Pastures we saved to come back through on the way to calving grounds. At one place I would ride through to spray trees I could mark their gain from one day to the next. I watched the grass where the nurse cows calve vanish in 2-3 days.
 
We don't have termites here. I had no idea that termites would be a problem in anything other than wooden structures. Learn something new every day on here.
I do know that tillage reduces ant populations and can help with hoppers to a point. But we don't have these fire ants I hear of on this site.
It's not the fire ants so bad here, it's the big red ants. I was killing them like crazy. come to find out they prey on the termites if the termites are exposed.
 
Can you broadcast an ant insecticide like Amdro granules? My experience is very limited, I used some in my aunts yard in FL for fire ants. It seemed to work well.
I was doing a decent job of killing ants until I read they hunt termites. It's a frying pan or fryer situation.
 
Here's a short clip of the termites. I slowed it down to hopefully help my shaking hands. The pasture where I recorded this is an almost complete less. We need to put 180 cows here for 3 to 4 days on the way to calving grounds. We won't get a day out of it.


And I mapped out, roughly, what we've lost. We'd be okay through calving if we could catch a rain on the wheat and or rye grass field.The cows are currently in the bottom right corner. We'll be going to the purple dot to calve.

20241230_200510.jpg
 
All of the creepy. crawly things have been EXTRA this year. I've seen a dozen or more scorpions and mantids. Probably more than I've seen in my entire life, combined. More than a handful caterpillars. And the number of grasshoppers was downright Biblical.
 
Rhis just blows me away. Never woulda thought.

Is there something in the soil they're after or are they eating the forages themselves? I wondered if they were after the sugars maybe?
desert termites wood lice

Oklahoma too

"Termite Management There are no current insecticide recommendations for control of G. tubiformans in Oklahoma pastures. However, general insecticide sprays that can be used to control insects in rangeland and pasture may also reduce termite numbers. Most of these insecticides have 'zero-day' pre-harvest intervals and grazing restrictions. They are listed in the 2017 Extension Agent's Handbook(reference below). Whether the listed insecticides will control G. tubiformans has not be field tested. In a study from 1971 through 1973, researchers at Texas Tech University applied insecticide to pasture that was infested with desert termites, significantly reducing termite populations and demonstrating insecticide sprays can be effective (Bodine and Ueckert 1975).However, the specific insecticide that was used is no longer available and no replacement insecticides have since been recommended. In addition, over-the-top insecticides would not reach deep enough into the soil to eliminate the colony, possibly requiring repeat applications. Some mechanical control by destroying mud tubes and plastering may be possible using a disc or toothed harrow or other farm device. This would break up termite workings, mechanically destroy termites, and expose survivors to desiccation. Such efforts may only partially solve the problem and probably not destroy termites deep in the soil."


......................................................................................................
"Agriculture termites are being found in urban areas such as San Antonio because the drought has forced them closer to the soil surface in search of moisture and nourishment, she said.

"Unlike subterranean termites, which usually feed on dead wood, these termites prefer live forbs, weeds and grasses," Keck said. "They eat soft plant tissue, and in urban settings they feed almost exclusively on grasses."


Agriculture termites in urban areas pose no threat to structures, but in large numbers can damage or destroy turf grass and may require control. "If control is needed, people in urban settings should use a pesticide labeled specifically for termites," Keck said. "Those in rural settings should look for pesticides labeled for use in the appropriate location and which contains Malathion as the active ingredient.""


The last paragraph came from a residential pest control company. Take it all with a grain of salt. It was too wet where I raised cattle for desert termites, but I've seen them in Tom Green County around Wall and San Angelo.. They would have drowned at my place in East Texas.
 
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desert termites wood lice

Oklahoma too

In a study from 1971 through 1973, researchers at Texas Tech University applied insecticide to pasture that was infested with desert termites, significantly reducing termite populations and demonstrating insecticide sprays can be effective (Bodine and Ueckert 1975).However, the specific insecticide that was used is no longer available and no replacement insecticides have since been recommended.
DDT?
 
I learn all kinds of stuff here. I have heard of termite mounds in Africa, but did not know the US has them in pastures. Learning here about all the challenges of the big old world out there makes me like this area more and more. But since I have been here, we have gotten coyotes, ground hogs, armadillos, fire ants, wild hogs, and lots of people. Most coming from that general direction. Please don't send us any of those pasture termites. Not many places left to escape the plagues any more.
 
OK... now my "regenerative soil health" brain is kicking in. Obviously, the conditions are "right" for the critters to thrive right now. What DON'T they like for habitat? What works against them? What kind of plant species are found "where they aren't" vs. "where they are", etc. What are the soil conditions? What is the residue/cover conditions? You can't do much about the "climate" on the broad scale, but you might be able to do something on the "micro-climate" scale.

Reading about using tillage to destroy their earth workings.... I wonder what would happen if instead you put cattle on their workings at very high density... and let's say you actually FEED on them, by bale grazing or bale unrolling, through the winter months. That'd dramatically change the "micro-climate" and introduce heavy hoof disturbances at the same time. And then maybe even create a lane, where you would regularly run the cattle through these areas on the way to other areas? Do you have a "rainy season" when it gets muddy? Let the cattle muck these areas up badly by feeding right on them during those times. You've already lost the grass if you don't control the pest, how much harm could it do to POUND these areas by feeding on them in mud, adding organic matter and seed at the same time? And even if it's "desert" with no rainy season, still putting all that carbon down and all that hoof traffic in a concentrated way would be a really drastic environmental change from the "avoidance" situation that is happening now (because there's no grass there, there's also no animal traffic there to speak of, and dwindling organic matter in the soil).

It might even be that the "predators" that would normally function to "control" them, are absent, because of a lack of desireable habitat FOR THEM! Therefore, your "pest" critters are able to thrive undeterred. "Build it, and they will come!"

Just thinking outloud, and wondering what potential the animals could have on them... if managed differently. If the cattle pound their "habitat" severely, AND add in alot of organic matter to change the soil composition and biological component dramatically, it might just no longer be the proper "habitat" for them.

Build it (habitat that they prefer) and they will come... so change it into something that they DON'T like, and they will leave! We destroyed the habitat in conventional agriculture for most of the grassland birds... and they've all but disappeared. But if we build back their habitat, they will come back too, unless we've made them completely extinct.
 
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