The information in the e-mail sounds too good to be true: Pouring club soda (carbonated water) onto a fire ant mound will kill the ferocious little ankle-biters.
That's the problem: It isn't true. According to entomologists, this false remedy has been making the rounds of e-mail contact lists, blogs and other Internet postings.
One recent version claims that Walter Reeves, a gardening expert and retired University of Georgia cooperative extension agent, advocates club soda to vanquish fire ants. He does not, as he has stated on his Web site, www.walterreeves.com.
A recent flurry of questions about the alleged remedy spurred fire ant experts at Texas A&M to write news releases to post online. One of their colleagues, Elizabeth "Wizzie" Brown, an integrated pest management specialist with Texas AgriLife Extension, tested the club soda remedy last year and found that it did not work. Pouring club soda onto a mound did little more than "produce lots of impressive bubbling action," she said.
People are attracted to this home remedy because it uses a readily available product and does not harm the environment, Texas AgriLife researchers say. Disturbing fire ants by pouring liquid into the nest may cause them to move into other parts of their extensive underground and multiple-mound tunnel system, but club soda won't suffocate the ants with carbon dioxide, says Dr. Mike Merchant, a professor and entomologist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Dallas.
Fire ant baits are the most effective way to control fire ants, and they work best when broadcast over a large area to reach even undetected ants and mounds, Merchant says.
Howard Garrett, who writes a weekly organic gardening column for The Dallas Morning News, estimates he received more than 100 inquiries about the club soda remedy, which he categorizes as wishful thinking. His organic treatment can be mixed in the kitchen or purchased ready to use (dirtdoctor.com). Howard Garrett's fire ant killer
To make Garrett Juice, mix the following in 1 gallon of water:
1cup compost tea
1 ounce molasses
1 ounce apple cider vinegar
1 ounce liquid seaweed
5 comments:
http://www.dallasnews.com/lifestyles/home-and-gardening/headlines/20100310-Club-soda-won-t-kill-fire-3988.ece
Perhaps this would be a perfect solution to the cabal members.... Instead of death by hanging or firing squad... death by staking them out next to one of the ant nests... essentially with the chemtrails and the like ..... that is what they have done to us ... a slow death .....
Dry instant grits and small soda pop capfuls of water get rid of sugar ants. Just lay out the dry grits along an ant trail and leave small capfuls of water every so often. They eat the grits and then drink some water and the grits expand in their stomachs and causes them to explode from the inside! Safe and easy!!
for sure remedy for fire ants: Take one M80, place in top of mound, light fuse, run repeat with all mounds the concussion takes 'em all out including the queen
Please fix your margins so we can read your postings. Thanks
Post a Comment