Hop plants and ants?

[Fantastical]

I have tons of black ants on my hop plants. They don't seem to be eating the hops but there is almost one ant on every leaf!!!

Anyone have any idea why?

 

[JRems]

I have some on mine too, they don't seem to eat the leaves,Maybe just exploring?

 

[damdaman]

If you notice little black aphids where you see ants, then the arts are "farming" the aphids. The aphids suck the plant and the ants drink a sweet secretion from the aphids.

If they're not farming aphids, don't worry about them, they're harmless, and probably just collecting nectar or some other secretion from the plant.

 

[Fantastical]

Sigh...... Did some research and found out that damdaman is right. I've got aphids.

They look a lot like this, though not as bad, and they are mostly on the leaves higher up.
http://gardeningafterfive.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/aphids.jpg

I just made a water soap mixture and sprayed the **** out of the leaves. Let's hope they clear up sometime soon. I'll update with the status of the aphids later.

 

[damdaman]

Sigh...... Did some research and found out that damdaman is right. I've got aphids.

They look a lot like this, though not as bad, and they are mostly on the leaves higher up.
http://gardeningafterfive.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/aphids.jpg

I just made a water soap mixture and sprayed the **** out of the leaves. Let's hope they clear up sometime soon. I'll update with the status of the aphids later.

Those look like the flying kind, not the ant-farmed kind, which would also be likely if they're on the higher leaves. Spraying them off is a good idea, but it's probably not the ants that caused the infestation.

 

[KevyWevy]

The past 2 years I've had the ant/aphid problem. This year I split the bines up more and cut off leaves to promote air flow and light penetration. From my understanding air movement and heat helps to keep the aphids down. I bought lady bugs both years and they usually just flew away and didn't make a substantial dent in the aphids.

Damndaman, are you saying the ants only eat the aphids in their life cycle stage when they're not flying; or are you saying they only eat a certain species of aphids which never fly in their lives?

 

[damdaman]

Damndaman, are you saying the ants only eat the aphids in their life cycle stage when they're not flying; or are you saying they only eat a certain species of aphids which never fly in their lives?

As far as I know ants don't eat aphids at all. In the case of "farmed" infestations, they encourage aphids to take over so they can eat the waste product of the aphids eating the plant.

What I've seen in my garden is that the green/pale blue-ish ones are the flying kind's young. They get blown around by the wind and land on plants they find tasty, and reproduce. The winged adults look like the young but with wings. Ants don't "farm" these, they're a separate pest on their own.

There's another type I've seen on my nasturtiums that are "farmed" by the ants. I don't know if these fly, but I know their life cycle is symbiotic with the ants, so maybe the ants are their only means of moving around. The ants will place these on a tasty plant. The aphids suck juice from the plant, and secrete a sweet by-product. The ants eat this by-product. The only way to eliminate the "farmed" kind is to kill the ant nest.

These are very different types of infestations. The flying green aphids just have to been eliminated from the plant leaves as they appear. The "farmed" aphids require killing the ant nest, and then eliminated from the plant leaves, or the ants will just keep "planting" new ones.

In my garden, the "farmed" kind have been black, and easily identified as "farmed" because you can see the ants crawling all over them and moving them around.

Many types of ants will crawl around on large plants like hops, sunflowers, etc and not harm them. Usually they're feeding on some natural substance that exists on the surface of the plant, and not actually doing any damage.

 

[theredben]

No need to be too concerned with aphids on hops, no real damage. Definetly don't buy ladybugs to deal with ant-farmed aphid populations. The ants will actually fight off the predators to protect their resource. If you look at normal aphid infested plants there are all sorts of "mummies" (parisitzed aphids), but in the ant-protected populations the predators/parasites cannot even get in! Really neat stuff if you look into it.

 

[Fantastical]

Well... I after spraying them yesterday it looks like they are already starting to die off. There were only a few leaves that had a significant amount on them and I figure it is because I missed them.

A friend of mine is a horticulturist and said that a 2% soap mixture sprayed for 3 days should kill them off pretty good.

It's looking good already! Just as I start to see burrs...

 

[NorthRiverS]

I tried spraying the aphids with soapy water and my leaves dried up and died. Maybe the sun cooked the leaves. Secondary growth has started and some flowers are sprouting. Hopefully, they will produce some cones.

NRS

 

[Fantastical]

I sprayed my plants twice two days in a row and the aphids are all gone now!! Hooray!

 

[day_trippr]

I tried spraying the aphids with soapy water and my leaves dried up and died. Maybe the sun cooked the leaves. Secondary growth has started and some flowers are sprouting. Hopefully, they will produce some cones.

NRS

You definitely want to avoid spraying anything on the hop bines when sun is on 'em or will be soon (like within a couple/few hours). I made that mistake early this season and the effect on the bines was pretty obvious with a lot of leaf curl eventually transitioning to brown crispy leaves that I eventually picked off.

Fortunately the plants gave me a second chance, and since then I've found the best time to spray is in the late afternoon when the sun is off the plants.

Knock on wooden skull, I haven't had to spray anything in the last month! No significant bugs, no apparent disease, it's all looking good!

Cheers!