Thinking Strategically

I swear, I feel like I'm fighting the Wehrmacht when it comes to dealing with the combined aphid and ant armies attacking my cotton. They are incredibly sophisticated opponents.

To recap, I'm raising cotton this year. Cotton is a soft plant and aphids like soft plants. Ants like aphids for their sweet excretions. Ladybugs will eat aphids, but ants will drive them away. If you let them, ladybugs will simply fly out of your garden without eating all of the aphids when they're confronted by ants.

To deal with this I must do the following:

1. Get rid of the ants.
2. Build a ladybug aviary around the cotton patch to keep the ladybugs focused on their task.
3. Release ladybugs into the aviary and plug my ears so I don't hear the screams of the aphids as they are slaughtered.

I've got #2 done, but #1 is turning into a huge chore. I bought ant Starbucks, i.e. bait stakes filled with a sweet liquid laced with borax, and have placed them in the cotton patch. The ants are going for the Starbucks, but after three days, there are more ants than ever. Yesterday, I concluded that this was because the ants still had access to the aphids and weren't eating enough of the poison.

Previously, I had bought insect glue, a sticky gel which creates a barrier to crawling insects. I decided to cut off the ants supply routes and try to force them to eat more bait by applying the glue to the stems of the cotton plants.

The label on the glue said it can damage sensitive plants. Not wanting to find out that cotton is in this category, I wrapped the stems in wound-dressing tape first and then applied the glue to that. The results were quite satisfactory.

First, a barrier around the main stem to cut off the nest from its source of aphid nectar resupply.

Next, barriers at key transportation junctions on the plants to eliminate resupply through back road routes.

Enemy units were cut off from the main ant army and trapped on the branches. I'm not sure what to do with these. My research says they will die in a day or two, but I'm not certain as they have access to the aphids. If they don't die, I can eliminate them with airstrikes, using compressed air blasts from my PC cleaner can.

My three most active ant Starbucks. Yes, I know I just mixed metaphors. Work with me here, people.

The middle one is particularly busy.

The makers of the bait sticks say it can take up to two weeks to wipe out an ant infestation. I'm hoping to finish them off sooner than that as my ladybug aviary is ready to go and I'm anxious to bring in my troops.

I had no idea this was going to get so complicated.

Mid-Day Update: All of the bait stakes are seeing increased traffic. Cutting the next off from the aphids might have done the trick.