Dear Wayne & Sharon - I don't want you to think I'm decrying your insights
into plants and their needs, which I find both instructive and humbling
(since I don't receive such insights) but I'm a bit confused by your
proposal that this rose-bed must have something wrong with it because
leaf-cutter ants are 'attacking' the roses, which we are told seem to be
their favourite crop. Much though the rose-grower may dislike the damage
they are doing, surely that activity is quite natural ? They are utilising
this material just as we utilise plant materials (cotton, hemp, bamboo,
timber etc) or food plants. How is it that their gathering such material
reveals some imbalance ? Certainly, plants have evolved methods of
deterring grazing animals, but the animals then evolve ways around this
deterrence; otherwise there wouldn't still be leaf-cutting ants. Are you
proposing that, with proper balance restored, these particular rose plants
would so strengthen their defences that the ants would be defeated and go
elsewhere ?
That said, I'm all for preventing ant damage on a local scale, using methods
which don't greatly injure the ants.
Tony N-S.
