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Friday, June 11, 2010

Sunflowers and giant Ants?



What's going on here? The bottom of every leaf looks like this! It's creepy. I thought maybe these big giant ants were eating something under the leaves but now I wonder if the ants themselves are eating the leaves.

Searching Google shows nothing except people making claims that ants do or don't eat. Would anyone happen to know what's going on?

3 comments:

  1. I have the same thing under the leaves of my sunflower...can't figure out what they are. did you every find out what they are?

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  2. No, I don't believe so. I do remember something about how the ants are feeding off the juices of something under the leaves? But I never got anything solid that I can remember of.

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  3. old post but the answer is the ants feed on aphids. usually the ones too small to see at first. I have found gatherings of ants that dont damage the plant, signify that the plant will have an aphid problem. Since ants farm aphids instead of eradicate them, I dont consider them beneficial so finding ants is cause for a sulphur dusting, or other preemptive control.

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