Community-wide programs are the most successful fire ant control method.HOUSTON -- Competitive water skiing continues on Lago Santa Fe with no interference from fire ants since the lakeside community began a neighborhood fire ant treatment program last year.
Last spring, Lydia Heard and Jay Gilbert approached Dr. Paul Nester, Extension agent, with a fire ant problem. They are property owners at Lago Santa Fe, a private ski community in the Bay Area.
Gilbert and Heard were helping with site preparation and hospitality for the 2002 National Water Ski Championships and U.S. Open Water Ski Championships, held there in August. They explained that fire ants were overrunning their community and they wanted to do something about it.
"The ants ran rampant. Our community looked like a prairie dog village," Gilbert said. "They were a safety risk because you could not go out onto your own land without watching where you stepped; they also interfered with the ski lakes, which was a huge problem."
Nester and Dr. Bart Drees, Extension specialist and director of the Texas Imported Fire Ant Project, put together a team to evaluate the situation.
The team found more than 168 ant mounds per acre. With each mound capable of sustaining up to 500,000 ants or more, it posed a major hazard for the crowds of 16,000 or more expected for ski competitions.
The team used a combination of the methods that have been encouraged through the Texas Imported Fire Ant Research and Management Plan over the last five years. By May the team had achieved a control rate of 70 percent over the ant mounds, by June it was up to 89 percent.
The first step was to involve the residents of Lago Santa Fe. Nester recommended the community-wide approach in which all residents put out fire ant bait at the same time. By getting neighbors together, fire ant control is more effective.
The community continues to maintain almost ant-free surroundings by continuing with treatments twice each year, which will include a round this May in preparation for the 2003 Water Ski Championships scheduled for August.
The Texas Two-Step Method, developed by Texas Cooperative Extension, has been effective at Lago Santa Fe. It involves baiting (first step) with both a slow acting, long lasting bait and a fast acting toxicant. The property is then monitored for any re-occurrence of ant mounds, which are then treated (second step) using a fast-acting toxicant but only at problem areas, such as high traffic sites.
Two new pieces of equipment were also used for this project, both developed specifically for fighting fire ants. The first, a bed-mounted bait blower that can cast a 40-foot bait spread onto roadsides. The second involved the modification of an all-terrain vehicle. A mount was developed for a spreader so that bait can be spread in yards and smaller areas, or adapted for use in urban settings.All four of these methods were employed by Nester and his team in Lago Santa Fe, the first time these have been used in combination on a project of this scale.
The Texas Imported Red Fire Ant Research and Management Plan was designed to develop ways to reduce fire ant populations to levels that make it no longer a serious economic threat or health risk, Nester said.
"This is what we aimed to do at Lago Santa Fe,” he said, “and we accomplished it with phenomenal results."
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