View Single Post
  #37   Report Post  
Old 07-09-2006, 09:37 AM posted to aus.gardens
Farm1 Farm1 is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 735
Default Getting Borax

"ant" wrote in message
Farm1 wrote:
"ant" wrote in message


And getting those mongrel ants. I'll have to suspend operations

for
a week though, there's some big rain coming in.


You won't need anything near 10-30 kg to deal with ants. If you

use
that much then you'll have effectively poisoned your soil.


10kg would be too much for 16 acres?


Have you done any searches on how much boron you use in an ant killing
station? My understanding is that it is something like tablespoon of
boron to about a half cup of icing sugar. If you use too much borax
on the basis of more is better then that is not so. The ants are not
attracted to the borax but to the icing sugar and they will not take
the bait unless it appeals to them. I know that with boron deficiency
in cabbages, the rate of application is a teaspoon/gallon of water.
That is a tiny amount of Borax and is for an identified deficiency.
Even for apple trees that produce "corky" fruit the remedy is only 4oz
for a mature tree - again a tiny amount.

Boron is a very minutely needed trace element and I would be very
cautious with how much you used and where. My reaction would be to
try to get rid of the problem bringing the ants and to try to use
white oil or some similar mild form of bug control rather than to risk
killing every ant on the place and poisoning your soil. And I'd be
using it only close tot he house if that is where your main problems
of ant infestation and because of incursion into the house.Start small
is always I think a better policy till you see what will occur.