Ants on trees are common. They love to crawl trees for many reasons. But you should be careful about the ants when it’s your peach tree. This article will explain if ants are bad for your peach trees and some easy and efficient ways to keep the ants away from your peach trees.
Are ants bad for peach tree?
A few random ants are typical for any tree, but many ants on your peach plants can be alarming. Ants that make a nest or cultivate aphids on your peach plant are harmful to the plant. However, ants also have some benefits like pest control and pollinating for your peach plant.
Ants on the peach trees have both advantages and disadvantages. But if we carefully compare the pros and cons, we will see that the risks of having a lot of ants outweigh the benefit. Although, ants are very beneficial for any garden.
So, what are the benefits of the ants on the peach trees? Ants will remove other harmful pests from your peach plant. They hunt many pests that can damage trees or fruit.
Ants also keep a role in the pollination of peach trees. Most of the time disadvantage of ants is more than the advantages.
They can pet aphids in the peach trees, protect them from predators, and make nests on the tree’s roots or other rotting spots. Ant nests can be fatal for the tree in many cases. So, When are ants bad for peach tree and when not?
If you are the time to pay attention to the health of your peach plant and the ants, you can allow ants on your tree until you see signs of ant nests or aphid culture on your peach plant.
But if you don’t have that much time, you can start taking steps to keep the ants away from your peach plant.
Ants are bad when they make a nest in your tree. They may start living in an empty hole, but they can also create holes if they need more space for their colony. They are good when they visit the flowers to collect nectar and chase other insects that land on your tree.
Do ants eat peach tree and leaves?
Common species of ants do not eat the peach tree or leave. But a sweet peach can attract ants and other insects. Even if the ant eats a ripe peach, there is nothing to worry about. You can easily remove the damaged and ripe fruit to eliminate the ants.
The ants are not the culprits if you see holes in the peach leaves. Look for caterpillars or beetles as they are the common bug species that can eat peach leaves.
Why are there ants on my peach tree?
Ants like to explore every place in search of food. So, if you see a few random ants, there is nothing to worry about. If you can see a line of ants, they may be collecting their food.
The food can be a sweet peach or an insect the catch. You can follow the line of ants and find out the actual case. The ants can also nest on your peach tree, or sometimes they can shift their colony while raining.
How to get rid of ants from my peach tree?
Luckily, it’s easy to deal with the ants and save your peach plants. You need to observe your garden regularly to spot an ant nest near your garden, so you can take steps to remove the ants regularly.
Before removing the ants, you must also reconsider if the ants are really harming you. Ants can be helpful for your peach plants in some ways. They can control pests from your peach trees and keep some role in pollination.
However, their harmful effects can be risky for your peach plants in many ways. The ants can make their home in the root of your peach plant, which can be fatal for your tree. Ants can also create their nest inside the rotten wood holes.
Ants can also bring fungus that may infect your plant if there is any damaged part of the tree. You can adjust your strategy depending on the role of the ants.
If you see a lot of ants on your plants, you can take steps to remove them, as too many ants can indicate there is an ant nest in the peach trees.
Here are some easy techniques to remove the ants from your peach trees. You can choose a suitable method to repel the ants from the peach plants.
Remove the aphids:
Aphids are many, many times more harmful than ants. They suck the sap out of your peach trees. They harm your peach tree directly, and they can be fatal for the peach tree if you do not take steps soon.
Why am I talking about the aphids? What’s the relation between ants and aphids? Well, there is an interesting mutualistic relationship between the ants and the aphids. Aphids eat the sap from the tree and produce honeydew.
Ants love honeydew, so they protect the aphids from the honeydew. The ants save the aphids from predators. On the other hand, the aphids provide them with honeydew. Aphids are like cows or ants, but the aphids feed honeydew instead of milk.
The presence of ants increases the chance of aphid infestation. Sometimes, ants take aphids and leave them on fruit trees.
So, when you see aphids on your plants, remove them by pressuring water to keep the ants away from your aphid plants.
Use double-sided tape:
It may sound funny, but it can be an effective way to stop the ants from infesting your peach plants. So, how does it work, and how can you use double-sided tapes to keep the ants away from your tree?
Just wrap the trunk of the peach tree with double-sided tape. Ants and other crawling insects can not pass the sticky surface. Only one loop will be enough to stop the ants.
However, the tape may not work after 3-4 days, so you must change the old tape and replace it with another new tape to keep the ants away from your plants.
Essential oils:
Essential oils are a great way to repel the ants and aphids from your peach plants. They are easy to find and pretty effective for the job. You can use any essential oil to repel the ants from your peach plant. Lemon oil and eucalyptus oil are more effective against ants.
Essential oil is not fetal for the ants usually, but the smell of the oil will bother their chemical signaling and breathing. So they will not stay where they get an essential oil smell.
So, how do essential oils repel the ants from your peach plant? The process is pretty straightforward. Just add 30 drops of essential oil with one gallon of water. Apply the essential oil to the lower part of the tree. So ants cannot crawl.
However, you can also use the spray all over the plant but make season it’s not the season of pollinating. The smell of essential oil may send the pollinators away.
Ant repellents:
There are many ant repellent products that you can use to repel the ants from your peach tree. But the baits and other toxic products are not the best choices to repel the ants.
Those toxic products harm the environment and can harm helpful insects like ladybugs and spiders.
Use water:
If the ant makes a nest inside rotten woods or in the roots of your peach tree, you can use pressured water to break down the nest of the ants. The ants may fix their home again. If you repeat it for a few days, the ants will shift their nest to another place.
In other places, it’s okay to use hot water to eradicate the nest of the ants. But it is not okay to do when the ants are in your tree. Hot water can harm the tree and may lead to fungus infection.
Spread chili powder:
Spread chili powder around your peach plant. Like other organisms, chili powder is quite irritating to their sensory organs. The chili powder is harmless to the plants, but it works effectively to remove the ants.
Cinnamon powder:
Like chili powder, the cinnamon powder works to repel ants from your peach tree. Make a thick ring around your peach plant with cinnamon powder.
However, make sure to apply again after rain, as ants may take shelter or move their house to higher places or trees while raining.
Final thoughts
Ants can be both devil and angel for your garden. But their benefits are not that impressive. It’s better to repel the ants from your peach tree to be on the safe side. Essential oil, chili powder, and cinnamon powder are some household items to repel the ants from your peach trees.