Ant patrol

This time of year is the worst for ants on the golf course. Because the Club did such a great job of draining the course during the renovation, with all the rain we have been getting lately the course is about the only dry area in the neighborhood.  Ants want dry ground!!

To combat the nuisance, biting pests I had the entire course treated with an ant bait. Ant baits are particularly tricky to use, very effective, but tricky. The active ingredient that does the work on the ant is sprayed onto a food particle, usually some sort of corn. Then the material has to be spread on the course when it's dry, and irrigation has to be held for 24 hours after spreading. If the bait gets wet, it "sours" the material and the ants will not eat it. So instead of this when the ant finds the bait and wants to take it back to the colony...

You get this if the bait gets wet...

Fortunately, we were able to dodge some rain last week for a day and got one application of bait out, which lead to better control than what we had. Yet, quite a few mounds still remain so I have more ant bait coming.  Once the bait gets here my staff will reapply the control product to get rid of the remaining mounds.