Re: [compost_tea] Re: FIRE ANT KILLING PROTOZOA FOUND IN 120 TEXAS COUNTIES

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 15:23:41 EST

The protozoa involved with the ants are a specific set of - hum, flagellates,
I think - of the genera Nosema.

What you need to do is find an ant mount that has died from such an
infection, and get those dead ants into the compost pile, so you have that particular
set of genera of protozoan species.

So as you go through your yard, or take walks in the woods, keep your eyes
open for insects that have died. The fuzzy ones were killed by fungi, and if
you put these guys in your compost piles, you enhance that insect-attacking set
of organismns. Add a little chitin into your compost (shrimp shells, dead
insects) and you can enhance those species even more.

If you find dead grasshoppers, that seem to have died for no apparent reason,
you are probably looking at a Nosema infection. Get those critters into your
compst ASAP. ant colonies that suddenly die out, for no apparent reason
(sorry, insecticides don't count here, that is a clear cause-effect), same story.

>From now on, when you take a hike in the woods, you are on a business trip,
right? You are in search of beneficial organisms to put in your compost......

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc,
1128 NW 2nd ST., Suite 120
Corvallis, Oregon
Soil Foodweb Inc., Australia
Soil Foodweb Inc., New York
Soil Foodweb Inc., New Zealand
Soil Foodweb Inc., The Netherlands
Soil Foodweb Inc., Mexico
Board Member, Sustainable Studies Institute, Eugene, OR

"Hope is not a feeling. It is not the belief that things will turn out well,
but the conviction that what we are doing makes sense,
no matter how things turn out."
-- Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic




Received on Wed Mar 24 2004 - 15:56:12 EST

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