Benefits to having imported red fire ants?

I originally posted this on the Fort Bend County Master Gardeners Blog on 9 July 2009.

Each day, I start out by looking over my yard to see if another mound of fire ants appeared overnight. Although I’m pretty much amiable to just about any sort of critter in my yard, these little beasts and I have a Hate-Hate relationship. I don’t like the way their mounds look in my yard and I have severe reactions to their stings. Therefore, I do my job to help completely eradicate these imported pests.

But I heard a chance comment on the radio one day that led me to believe that some good may come from imported red fire ants. Evidently, some grape growers allow the fire ants to stay around because they help control insect pests. So, I decided to do some research on this matter.

Appears that the imported red fire ants eat just about everything including ticks, mites, weevils, and other arthropods. Crops that benefit from this natural predation are generally cotton and sugarcane fields as the ants feed on boll weevils and the sugarcane borer. This generally leads to less insecticides needed for these crops. Other agricultural crops that benefit from fire ants would be soybean, corn, sorghum, watermelon, cucumber, sunflower, and peanuts.

However, fire ants also will eat young shoots of crops and, during dry periods, chew and damage irrigation tubing. The large mounds of these ants interfere with harvesting equipment and can cause a lot of pain for any field workers who happen to get in their way. Plus, these voracious feeders are indiscriminate in their prey and will also kill beneficial insects. Okra farmers find that fire ants love the okra and pecan nuts are also a delectable for them.

Overall, I still don’t like these critters and will continue my one-person fire ant eradication efforts. I will continue to use the 2-Step Method for control in my yard and try to convince my neighbors to do the same. But, if I ever start a major sugarcane or cotton farm, I may just let these ants do their thing.

References:
AgriLife Extension (Texas A&M) and Cooperative Extension Program (Prairie View A&M), http://www.extension.org
Auburn University College of Agriculture, http://www.ag.auburn.edu
University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, http://www.uaex.edu
University of Tennessee Extension, http://www.fireants.utk.edu