Expert: John Wood, Certis USA Regional Manager

Q: As I begin harvest, ants are making an appearance. How can I protect my crop?

A: With harvest speeding up throughout the valley, you’ve got plenty of things to think about. It’s important, however, to not forget about ant control. As I’ve mentioned before, ants can consume 1% of your yield per day. That’s 20 lbs. of almonds per day on an average yield of 2,000 lbs. Your daily financial loss can be upwards of $40/day/acre.

If you are at harvest, consider the use of Seduce, a spinosad-based insecticidal bait that works within hours and is the only ant bait that can be used up to the day of harvest. One to two applications of Seduce costs less than the loss to ants, so it makes sense to maximize yields with an application of Seduce near harvest time.

Seduce is OMRI^® Listed and NOP approved, so it can be used on organic tree nuts. Another benefit to Seduce is that it is residue exempt giving you full flexibility if you are exporting your crop.