A. Much longer ago, Howard's fire ant receipe was 1 cup orange oil, 1 cup manure tea, & 2 Tbspn per gal H2O. Lately I've seen no molasses & manure tea & only 1 1/2 Tsp orange oil. Why? Is it effective? At $30 a gal orange oil is no treat!!!!! The other day tried some of that amount in my paddock & am unsure about it effectiveness. Will continue using molasses & manure tea in my receipes as they can only be helpful in any case. Any help to my wonders???????

B. Am fooling with instant grits on fire ant mounds (cheaper than orange oil), but haven't seen/heard any directions/amounts,etc/etc. Anybody have any advice?????

I have had great success in using a horse manure based compost tea, loaded with garlic/hot pepper powders, canola oil, and liquid soap. Very, very, very cheap!

I have also had great success using gallons of boiling hot water plus teas, to pour all over the ant mounds to kill the queens. Also very cheap!

I can buy a 50 lb bag of dry molasses @ $10.00/bag in my area. It usually last a month or more for me, since I mainly use it in my aerated tea recipes. Adding a cup per 5 gallon recipe of homemade ant pesticide is not too expensive.

Molasses is a powerful biostimulant. It stimulates certain soil bacteria to repel ants. Citrus acid (orange/lemon peelings tea?) is a mild abrasive to humans, but deadly to the thorax and internal anatomy of soft body insects.

A cup of orange oil? Even 15 years ago orange oil was very expensive. I can't imagine using that much orange oil.

I think a lot of trial and error went into the current recipe. I'm absolutely certain that manure is not one of the ingredients in anything. Compost is the ingredient you're thinking of.

Grits are an oft told remedy for fire ants. So far nobody has a reason for them working, if they do. Be sure to let us know one way or the other. I've seen many people report success with just molasses or with a molasses and orange oil mix.

If you have fire ants on pasture, you also probably no longer have fleas, ticks, chiggers, noseeums, or any of the diseases associated with them. Cattle and pets learn the smell of fire ants pretty fast and give them plenty of room. Many Texas cattlemen are leaving them be and are a lot happier than they thought they would be about it.

dchall, please read the captains message again. he says to use 1 cup of dry molasses, not 1 cup of orange oil!

I was replying to the original poster, not the Captain.

sorry; you are correct, that would be very expensive!

Regardless of cost... is there a way to kill the little @#$#@$'s that would ensure a long, slow and gruesome death for them?

(NOTE: The 50 little blisters on this barefoot gardeners feet have nothing to do with the nastiness of the question)

I did read about one such means of slow death somewhere. I'll get back to you when I find it again.

The use of INSTANT GRITS came up today on Howards' radio show. We need to try this and report back on this site! This would be a very easy & cheap way to control these critters if it worked! People keep saying Instant Grits instead of reg. grits. Does anyone know why?

The recipes change over time as Howard learns different rates & mixtures and their effectiveness. Lucky for all of us, he is willing to adjust his recommendations according to what we all learn as time goes on. I have had great success with this combination:

1 cup compost tea (manure based)
1 cup molasses
1 cup cornmeal
1 oz. Orange TKO (concentated d-limonene)
Mix with 1 gallon of water and drown the mound.
(This is basically the same as Gardenville Auntie Fuego with cornmeal added).

The Orange TKO sells for about $20 for a 16 oz. bottle, so that's about $1.25 for the d-limonene per gallon of ant killer . Not so expensive from my point of view. But...I'm frugal! This formula has wiped out all the fire ant mounds I've treated for years, and it works with or without the orange oil/d-limonene concentrate. I do think molasses is a key component and by experimentation found that adding the cornmeal was beneficial. The beneficial nematodes seem to be the real keepers of the gate, though.

For the grits, yeah, they work and wipe out the little mounds but not permanently for the big mounds, from my experience, because they don't kill ALL the queens in the mound and the mound moves. And you get the action with instant grits because they blow up faster with less moisture. Stick regular in one bowl and instant in another, add water and just watch 'em.

If you use Crest tooth paste on the Fire Ant bites pretty quick after the bites.
You want get the blisters.

I make my own orange oil by saving the peeling from the oranges I eat. Then put them in the blennder to make into a pulp. Then I let it fermment for about a week. I add water to it them use it to control fire-ant or any othe bugs. I'm now making some compost tea that I adding the orange oil to and molass also for a pest control. But the fireants do control other bugs like ticks. I only trat those that are in the wrong places like next to the patio or in the garden.

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