Is There a Permaculture Way to Deal with Leaf Cutter Ants?

Those ants are a consistent problem here on our property. Often they set up shop near avocado trees and other specimen fruit trees and defoliate the tree time after time. I have even seen them exhaust trees to the point of death. Common practice here is to locate the main tunnel where they are taking their leaves, and apply a powdered insecticide, which they take into the depths of their nest. This doesn't really agree with my ethics, so it would be good to hear other effective alternatives. One other product we tried was a biodegradable bait, but I found it to be ineffective.

Hi Scott! I'm sorry you haven't received an answer yet, but let me throw in my 2 cents.
The permaculture 'solution' is often finding another way to look at the problem. Your problem seems to be "too many ants!", and the conventional solution has been to kill some of those ants. I imagine that conventional solution requires frequent re-application, as well as exposure to nasty chemicals. The ideal permaculture solution only needs effort to start it off, and then 'takes care of itself' as much as possible.

The classic solution to pests is to ask "what eats those pests?" I'm sure if you looked in some of the other forums you'd see people quoting the very popular idea that "you don't have a too-many-slugs problem, you have a not-enough-ducks problem!" On that note, perhaps you could find a way to include guinea fowl or silky chickens into your site? If allowed to run around near the trees, I'm sure they'd really enjoy ants for snacks, and then you also get chicken poop, meat, and eggs as resources in exchange for your efforts. Creating habitat for other predators, whether that means birdhouses or bug motels, is sure to help as well.

Additionally, it's often the case that problems plague only certain plants, as a way of telling us that we've missed something in our design. I've had some of my spinach bolt much earlier than the rest, all because I didn't notice that the soil in one spot was much sandier--and therefore got much warmer and drier than the rest. My solution was easy; I didn't plant spinach in that spot anymore. The squash was much happier there. Do the ants attack all trees equally? Or is it certain species, in certain locations? Are some trees more resilient, or less likely to be attacked in the first place? Paying attention to specific details like that can help you find a way to avoid the problem existing in the first place. It might be that you can only have certain species in certain areas, and keep your avocados safe and happy in a different spot.

I hope that this has been helpful, and that you can find a way to get something positive out of this problem! Good luck!

The permaculture answer is "figure out what eats ants, get more of them". But that sometimes just doesn't work out and we do need to have other solutions to hand.

I don't like pesticides of any sort - the collateral damage can be great, and the compounds themselves can be harmful to health. That said, I have no objection to killing the pest directly if it is warranted.

For a non-chemical approach, I have seen molten aluminium used to great effect. It can be melted comparatively easily in a DIY crucible/furnace. Pour it in the nest. Let it cool. Dig it out and reuse it next time.



Safe to apply, no residual pesticides, highly effective... and you get to play with fire.

This thread I found under the "Similar Threads" feature offers some suggestions like DE and orange oil, etc.

https://permies.com/t/3479/leaf-cutter-ants-feed-leaf

My solution is vinegar.

Small scale, I agree with vinegar. I live in Brazil, where our leaf cutters are pretty intense-- personally if I see a nest in my garden I'll dump a pot of boiling water on it, and the survivors will move along elsewhere.

Large scale- a nest can strip a ton of foliage a day so it's a big problem in my field (forestry)--while the official response in our region includes insecticides (a certain international certifying body has made a regional exception in pesticide-free wood production for leaf-cutters), there has been excellent response from one solution that is 100% permie: integrated forest-pasture management (silvipastoral). You let cows or sheep range among the trees, they're going to disturb the nests and the ants will go elsewhere. The research has mostly involved eucalyptus and pine but I visited one demonstration orchard that had sheep running underneath persimmons (too tall for sheep to reach). Shade for the animals, fertilizer for the trees, feces attract birds that go after bugs, both birds and animals bother the ants.

great all your responses. we too have loads of leaf cutting ants and i definitely feel them as a big threat! i try to live together with them, but they just get more and more, and i know if they want they can in one night destroy everything! interesting with the liquid aluminium, i might try it and then let you know how it worked ...
and i wanted to know why exactly you Lia advise silkie chickens and guinea fowls for ants? do you have a special experience with them?
thanks a lot to all of you. your answers are really interesting!!