Fire
Ant Trails:
News from the Texas Imported Fire Ant Research & Management Plan
June 2002 Vol. V No. 6
Table of Contents
“Red Imported Fire Ant Highlights 1997-2003"
Other Web Site Revisions and Additions
"RED IMPORTED FIRE ANT HIGHLIGHTS 1997-2003 "
The brochure enclosed with this newsletter was developed to provide readers with brief, non-technical descriptions of some of the advances made with funding provided to establish and support the Texas Fire Ant Research & Management Plan. The Fire Ant Project is currently in the fifth year of existence. Currently, efforts are being made to develop a continuation of the program beyond the 6-year plan approved by the Texas legislature in 1997. This brochure is available from this office and can be viewed or downloaded from the project’s web site.
OTHER WEB SITE REVISIONS AND ADDITIONS
Neal Lee has been hired as our new Extension Assistant, replacing the position vacated by Rody Best. Neal has been working with Anna Kjolen to make revisions and additions to maintain our web site, http://fireant.tamu.edu.
"Frames" have been removed and the home page has been revised to provide better access to information available on the web site.
Links to labels of imported fire ant baits have been added to allow County Extension Agents and web site users direct access to information about these products.
A link has been provided to http://fireant.ifas.ufl.edu, the site that
features the USDA-ARS Areawide Suppression of Fire Ants program of which Texas is a participant.
Ants played a major role in the early history of biological control: "The Chinese citrus growers placed nests of predaceous ants, Oncophylla smaradina, in trees where the ants fed on foliage-feeding insects. Bamboo bridges were constructed to assist the ants in their movements from tree to tree. Date growers in Yemen went to North Africa to collect colonies of predaceous ants which they colonized in date groves to control various pests (from Association of Natural Bio-control Products, http://www.anbp.org)."
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Prepared by:
Bastiaan “Bart” M.
Drees,
Fire Ant Project Director
Department of Entomology
412 Minnie Belle Heep Bldg.
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas 77843-2475
979/845-5878; FAX: 979/845-7029
b-drees@tamu.edu; http://fireant.tamu.edu
The information given herein is for educational purposes only. Reference to commercial products or trade names is made with the understanding that no discrimination is intended and no endorsement by the Texas Cooperative Extension or the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station is implied.