How to Keep Leafcutter Ants Off My Plants
- 1). Dust the affected plant with acephate, carbaryl or permethrin insecticide. When leafcutter ants bite part of a green plant to take it away, the insecticide kills them at the bite site. Apply the insecticide, according to the manufacturer's directions.
- 2). Apply a hydramethylnon bait insecticide to the areas where the ants are foraging. Applying a contact insecticide to the affected plant will achieve only short-term control of the leafcutter ants, and you can be almost guaranteed that more ants will come from the colony to visit the plant in the future. Controlling leafcutter ants at the colony is difficult since these ants build their mounds underground, so applying a bait insecticide is the most effective option. Again, follow the manufacturer's directions.
- 3). Remove the infested host plants if the bait insecticide fails to destroy the leafcutter ant colony. Given the ants' tendency to build mounds where they are impossible to access, the only option to protect your host plants is to dig them up and transplant them to another part of your garden where the leafcutter ants have not built a nearby colony.