Benefits of Weaver Ants as Plant Pests Predators

Side-Green.Com - Benefits of Weaver Ants as Plant Pests Predators - Generally people use weaver ants to take their eggs, as bird feed, but not only that weaver ants benefits for humans. Benefits of weaver ants actually been felt since ancient times by the farmers, although they are less aware of it.

When I was a child, a mango tree next to the house, fruit very dense. The mango fruit still hanging on the tree until harvest time. When arriving harvest, ripe mango is very smooth, good skin deep to the flesh. Why is that? Why is it that so many mangoes that fall before harvest. The mango fruit punch, scaly, and broken.

Why the difference of past and present?

The answer is the difference was due to the presence of weaver ants in the tree. In the old days, if not stronger with weaver ants bite, one would not dare to climb a mango tree to pick the fruit. But now we can climb a mango tree to pick the fruit.

Based on the illustration above, it can be concluded that the existence of weaver ants in trees help farmers to repel even eradicate plant pests, such as caterpillars, fruit worms, ladybugs, and other fruit pests.

The pest eradicated by weaver ants that eat it.

Now this hunt weaver ants in nature to take its eggs increasingly widespread and uncontrolled. Hunting ignore sustainability. Brutal hunting of weaver ants, thus destroying the nest, and weaver ants eventually became extinct.

Around my house, even in rural areas I can say no more weaver ants in trees.

This damage, turns humans also cause. How times after us later? What the future of our children and grandchildren later?

To slightly reduce the damage, let us stop the hunting of weaver ants in nature by means bred in our home, which is the cultivation of weaver ants.

Cultivation of weaver ants? Fear of being bitten. Do not weird, weaver ants kept in the house? Later the entire household can be bitten.

Do not be afraid of weaver ants bite, because behind its bite, weaver ants can bring a lot of money if we know the theory.

The story of the past:

If we are ever bitten by ants when climbing mango or jackfruit tree, you might be annoyed by the invasion of ants are so intense. Often the bite makes us groan-ouch. The reddish-orange insects build their nests on the leaves. They number in the hundreds, even thousands, have a well-known territory and aggressive in defending its territory. This ant has the instinct to survive and kill cruelly. This ant known by the name of weaver ants.

Weaver ants not just any ants. They are unique and different from other types of ants. Humans have used their services in the plantations centuries ago. Noted, around the year 300 AD in Canton (China), these ants are used to repel pests in citrus. People take these ant nests of the forest, memperjualbelikannya, then put it in the orange trees superior species. The same technique is still being done until the 12th century, and is still applied in the south of China to date.

In Indonesia, in Sumatra, in coffee plantations in Lampung, we can find a colony of ants nesting in the leaves kopi.Ternyata, the coffee plant that occupied the nest is better off than a plant that is not occupied by weaver ants. Coffee production was so much increased.

Experts insects in Ghana has been using this type of African weaver ants (Oecophylla longinoda) for controlling plant pests chocolate. The presence of these ants were able to reduce the two kinds of serious diseases caused by viruses and fungi, ie the way to attack and kill the aphids are spreading the disease. Aphids are very detrimental, because sucking sap at once take its network. How to control this pest as we know it as "biological control" and this is an example of the oldest in the history of agriculture.

Biocontrol and bioindicator use weaver ants as biocontrol was already done also by the majority of Indonesia's population, although not massive. For example, if a tree guava or mango tree in the garden pests, they will move weaver ants into the tree.

Actually it is not the only benefit provided weaver ants to humans. By their very nature are very sensitive to changes in the air, people can use this ants as indicators of the state of the air in an environment.

Weaver ants like clean air environment. Never smoke or fumes motor vehicle factories, smoke from burning rubbish in the garden alone can make them out of the way. No wonder, if in Jakarta or other big cities we increasingly difficult to find their nests in trees.

Sometimes infrequently we find them in the plantation area. Because now the eradication of pests to pesticides is more widely used, so that not only the dead pests but many other useful insects were killed. Not to mention hunting humans against weaver ants. Many people take their sarangsarang to get kids weaver, also known as Kroto as pet food or bird birds chirp or chatter. Obviously this will make increasingly shrinking population weaver ants. Whereas the presence of these ants is important as natural enemies of insect pests, as well as biological indicators (biological) on air quality in an area.

Queen Reserved

Know who contributed to this insect life is quite impressive. The social insects nest in the canopy tropical forests to farms and chocolate. They form colonies whose members could reach 500,000 tails, consisting of a very large queen, children, workers and soldiers concurrently. Everything females, except for a few male ants are small role in the life of the colony. The male ants leave immediately if an adult to hold wedding fight that fly to marry the queen, and they did not return to the nest.

Among the members of the colony, which is the most active group of workers. They are diligent search for food, build nests, and persistent protect their territory day and night. Approximately every one minute, one of the workers regurgitate liquid food into the mouth of the queen. They feed the queen with food that has been softened so as to allow the queen produce hundreds of eggs per day. If the queen had been laying, the workers will move the eggs to a protected location, clean, and feed the larvae hatch fine if it had been.

Weaver ants also known as weaver ants, because of the way they make nests like those made of woven. Their nests are made of some leaves that dilekukkan and linked together to form complex spaces and resemble a tent. Foliage that they pull in one direction, and then connected with fine threads drawn from their own larvae. The workers move back and forth from one leaf to another leaf form webbing.

Aliens are trying to infiltrate into the nest area, will they be brushed with formic acid sting that comes out of their venom glands. If another type of ant accidentally let even maintain aphids living in their territory, the weaver ants just the opposite. They are trying desperately to get rid of other insects that live in the trees where their nest is located. Therefore, if we dissect their nests often we found a dead beetles or other insects that are larger than this ant.

That privilege weaver ants thus making them hold important meaning in natural pest control. Quite simply, but not as well as the risk to the environment if we use chemical insecticides.

Weaver ants mark territory with a special liquid.

Ants apparently has some sort of special glands that produce fluid that is used to mark their territory. Glands called anal glands. Special fluid called a pheromone produced them brush to the ground and only the members of the nest that can recognize smells. So this weaver ants use chemical messages to sue nest mates towards their new area.

Of course it is not only the smell traces they left behind when looking for a new area and when to defend, but also used when they are foraging. When an ant finds a pile of food, he would exert his friends for hauling food to the nest. Anus gland will leave a trail of scent along the path between the nest and the location of the findings. When passed by her, this ant antennae give stimulus to flail while spewing little food found it earlier to his mouth.