EP:445 | Understanding Fire Ants

On this episode we’re joined by Johnny Wilson, PhD, of Central Life Sciences to explain the invasive red and black imported fire ants (Genus Solenopsis). In the South these tiny ants are everywhere, and we wondered if and how they impact the wildlife we so dearly love.  The short answer is YES, they do! We wanted to learn about how they got here, how they operate, how to deal with them and can we control or at least suppress them without harming birds, reptiles, mammals and even other beneficial insects. We learned a lot and what we gleaned can help us all be better Gamekeepers. 

Listen, Learn and Enjoy. 

Central Life Sciences Ant Control 

https://www.centralantcontrol.com

Extinguish 

https://www.facebook.com/ExtinguishFireAnts

https://x.com/ExtinguishCLS

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I am Jeff Foxworthy and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, then buddy, you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Baltiok Land Enhancement Studio as they discuss the latest wildlife and habitat management practices, news, and of course honey. There's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm gonna tell you, I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_05 0:26

We're live in three, two, one.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

All right, everybody. Uh Toxie, have you ever been on I know you have. You've been on dove shoots. You go pick up a bird, you drop it at the stool.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Ah, look, I've lived my life. That's everything. Uh, you know, we're in the middle of the Black Belt Prairie. I think this has to be the epicenter of fire ants.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

We got 'em. There you just drive by past.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

And it's literally, if you said 15 minutes, literally in two minutes, they're starting to cover up your dove no matter what.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

Every time you try to plant a tree, they build a nest around it.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Instantly. The garden, it's like again and again and again, the thing about it is it's like almost like the more you do something to them, the more there are. They're amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

They're a pain at the nursery. Uh we have to get inspected uh by the SDA.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

I'm looking forward to finding out more about them. You know, maybe ways we can do a better job, but the effect they have, too. Because I'm not sure I heard anything but kind of anecdotal evidence of how bad they are on certain you know, certain wildlife. Sure. Yeah. I have a feeling it has to be bad, though.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

Well, they shouldn't have been brought here to begin with. No. And they are.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Like a lot of stuff we have.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Well, let me get our guest introduced. Let's do it. We've got Dr. Johnny Wilson.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Great to be here, Real. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I mean, what a great Bobby, kudos to you lining this up, but what a great topic for gamekeepers to listen to.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Yeah, well, you know, we've we've been wanting to do this one and and trying to figure out the right person to talk to and to learn all that we can about him. Turns out Johnny's a big hunter himself, so he cares about the habitat. He's an upland hunter. He's really interested in trying to have more quail, more pheasants. So this is kind of right in his, he's somebody that's paying attention to this. And let uh look, let me go ahead and properly introduce him because he's got some credentials. So he was educated at Kansas State University. Yep. And he also schooled at the University of Gahent in Belgium. Did I pronounce that right?

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Uh Ghent. Gent. They say it six different ways, so I don't even know.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

It was a lead pipe since Bobby would mispronounce that.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

So Belgium. Wow. So and currently he works for Central Life Sciences, developing integrated pest management strategies. Uh he's got a PhD in, I think, grain management, if I'm not mistaken. But he's a hunter and he cares, he's uh has uh he cares about what's going on in the habitat, and he's gonna have some interesting insight into today's discussion. He knows about fire ants. And uh Johnny, we welcome you. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Well, appreciate to be being here, having the opportunity to chat with you all. I uh affectionately refer to myself as a non-classically trained entomologist. I'm the lone non-entomologist on the tech team, so we try and uh bring all sorts of different backgrounds and mold it together. That's the best way of killing bugs.

SPEAKER_04 3:29

That's how we do it. You know, uh in this field, uh it's all about who you know. You know, we we we don't know everything, and so by pulling those resources together, you can have the best benefit.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

You know, we always talk about all the improving habitat, and you know, like Dudley, you're doing a lot of work on your place, but we we see these fire ant mounds everywhere. And they've got to have some kind of impact on ground nesting birds and young fawns when they're born and they're wet, you would think. And so those are some of the things we hope to learn about today, Johnny.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Yes. Well, happy to happy to dive in wherever you guys want to.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Well, I tell you what I'd we'd like to do, Toxie. Let's just go ahead and get the rapid fire out of the way, get to know them a little bit better. Absolutely. Johnny, get ready. This is a lot of fun. Nutrient Ag Solutions brings rapid fire every week, and uh they're great folks. We can talk more about the inventory. Great folks, great company, too. Yeah, yeah. So, all right, Dudley, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

All right, all right, Dr. Johnny. Um, I'm gonna ask you a few questions real quick. As Bobby said, we're trying to get to know you better. So are you ready?

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Uh yes, sir, I am.

SPEAKER_04 4:37

All right, cornbread or roll?

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Cornbread.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Jelly on your biscuits, yes or no?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

No.

SPEAKER_04 4:43

You gotta pick between these two, and I know it hurts, but pheasant or quail, which is your favorite?

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Quail.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

Uh if you were on Jeopardy, which topic would you excel at potent potables. Have you ever tried turkey hunting?

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yes, I have.

SPEAKER_04 5:05

Uh, give a shout out to your favorite local restaurant.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Oh, my favorite local restaurant.

SPEAKER_04 5:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

We actually have uh we have better barbecue back on the Kansas side, but we do have some pretty good stuff around the St. Louis, St. Charles area. Pappy's is pretty solid.

SPEAKER_04 5:23

Okay. I need to check that out when I'm going through. Um, what is your favorite genre of music?

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Probably country.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Uh dirt, we'll call it red dirt country, but we'll get real specific.

SPEAKER_04 5:35

There you go. Uh, you're a grain guy. Which species of grain intrigues you the most? Hmm. Well.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

I think it has to go back to the to the roots and just stick with hard red winter wheat.

SPEAKER_04 5:53

Okay. Um what is a favorite wild game meat to prepare?

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Ooh, favorite wild game meat. So definitely at my house, it's it's always about quail, and it's always breaded, and it's always a fight to see who gets the last piece every single time.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

Okay. Um I wish I had been able to experience that, but one of these days I'm gonna eat some wild quail. Uh, name a tailgate or hunting vest snack that you keep going back to.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Oh, I actually really like the uh cars trail mix.

SPEAKER_04 6:35

I had some trail mix yesterday. What is a favorite food from your studies in Belgium?

SPEAKER_02 6:42

So one thing that stood out to me there is that I had been lied to about Belgian waffles my entire life. I had an expectation that they they were just like a waffle. And I go there and everybody's telling me about the right place to go to get an authentic Belgian waffle, and I had one. And the first thing I did is I looked up and I said, This is just a funnel cake. We have these at the state fair. We put powdered sugar on it. That's all it is. We have this romanticized, oh, it's this poofy waffle. No, it's it's a funnel cake.

SPEAKER_04 7:12

Well, maybe we're better at it here in the good old USA. Who knows? Uh we tend to do that. What insect provides you the most grief for grain storage?

SPEAKER_02 7:22

It's rice weevil, it's always rice weevil. Um, and fire ants are close, not on the grain side, but they're uh they're close in terms of calls.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Okay. And last but lot not least, I'm I I know you're a big podcast guy. Name your favorite podcast.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Ooh. So I actually have listened to Gamekeeper Podcast prior to coming on here. Um, but I I think that uh I'm more of a a history buff. And uh hopefully this doesn't get blurred out, but um Behind the Bastards is a really, really good uh history podcast.

SPEAKER_04 8:03

Bobby, have you ever listened to that one?

SPEAKER_02 8:05

I've never heard of that one.

SPEAKER_04 8:06

Okay, well we may have to check it out.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

We will check it out.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

All right, good answers. Yeah, Johnny, that was good. Uh so I I think like Toxie said, why don't you walk us back to the time that how in the world did the fire ants get here originally?

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Yeah, so there's first we kind of need to make a distinction on what we're talking about when we refer to fire ants.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Yeah, so I was gonna ask how many different kinds there are, because I know from experience been stung by quite a few different, they look different, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

There's over 280 different species of fire ants. But so you're you're not wrong in saying, well, that one looks a little bit different than that I saw earlier. Um typically when we're discussing fire ants, we're referring to the red imported fire ant. Uh that's what pops into most people's mind. Uh one of the stories about how they came over here kind of first references the black imported fire ant. And uh we I believe that we have uh uh a graduate from an Alabama school on the panel, right? Or at least a fan.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Uh yeah, but we do have a graduate from an Alabama school. Yeah, yeah. They just don't like the word Alabama very much.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

We have to point the finger back at Alabama and specifically to Mobile and say this is where the problem came from. They didn't do a very good job of quarantining the ships that came in. And the prevailing thought is uh back in the day, they used to pack a ship's ballast with soil to keep that keel even, uh keep that weight down in the bottom. And the thought or the thinking is that they packed that soil from South America and it contained these uh black imported fire ants, and that's how they first made the trip up here. And a similar thing happened with the red imported fire ants and that soil was just contaminated, brought up here, and that's how they then crawl off into all the cargo, they get everywhere else, and it was just lack of that quarantine uh procedure, which is an interesting time to, you know, quarantine probably should have been on folks' minds having come out of the Spanish flu era and everything like that. But they they slept on it.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

When did they think it was? About what year?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Uh for the black imported fire ant, I believe it was like 1918, and for the red imported fire ant sometime around 1930.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

So do you think that a barge or a ship went up the waterway from mobile, or did it just start in mobile and spread all over the country just from mobile?

SPEAKER_02 10:45

The the thought is that it's spread out from mobile.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

And there's a variety that you know, it's kind of like when when we're talking about any disease vector, it's a very similar way. Well, how do diseases get spread, or how do invasive pests or animals get spread? It's not just one thing, there's always multiple different things. So hay is always a hot button topic when discussing uh red imported fire ants. Certainly the the transportation of different goods and and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Well, potted trees and plants and stuff. Um no, we know for a fact, you know, we have to adhere to that also. But especially like you go to a nursery and they got the three-gallon, five-gallon pots, I'm sure the more soil that travels with a plant, the more careful they have to be.

SPEAKER_04 11:31

Yes, and while you know, we don't we we try to steer clear of of certain insecticides at the nursery, we are required to treat every all the soil before it leaves the nursery.

SPEAKER_06 11:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

So, uh Johnny, how far east, north, and west have these things progressed?

SPEAKER_02 11:53

That is an interesting topic for discussion. And there's we experience the exact same thing on the grain side, or probably whenever we're talking about insects, and even on the hunting side, well, what's the range of a mountain lion? You talk to people in Kansas, and there's been mountain lions there for years, and uh then you talk to a conservationist and they say, well, it's a little different story. The prevailing thought is that they are gonna go all the way through Texas and they're gonna hug that bottom uh corridor, get up into California as well. But as you get more northern, uh it's really dictated by how hard of a winter we actually had. And they are constantly pushing more northward, and they're they're kind of buffeted by, well, how bad was that winter? And it's gonna have the capability to have a population kill off, push them back a little bit. And we're seeing the same thing on the stored product insect side is we just don't have those hard prolonged freezes. You know, it it gets cold and we get a lot of snow. And heck, last year we got two feet of snow here in Missouri from one event and it was melted four days later. Well, that's not really enough to cause a meaningful decline in population. We need that long, hard, prolonged freeze. But in general, kind of that Oklahoma barrier is where they're at. But we've certainly heard reports of them going more northern than that.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

Hmm. Kind of reminds me of the stock market, you know. A bad winter may push them back, but but then they just keep inching and keep inching its way up.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

So, Johnny, when you were here, um and I'm sure it's the same with places that you study, but you'll be riding by and you'll look out at a pasture and you'll see a lot of mounds out there. But um what's going on underground? Are there more ants underground that with colonies that we don't see?

SPEAKER_02 13:52

It is it's that iceberg effect on steroids. What you see topside can look impressive, and certainly as you're driving by and walking by, you see a two-foot-tall mound and go, wow, that's that is enormous.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

You run over one with a tractor tire, it'll just about flip you over if you're not careful too. Yes. I mean, they get really big.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Yeah, they they certainly do, and it pales in comparison to what actually lies beneath the surface. You know, that that total colony structure can easily stretch out 25 feet. Wow. Goodness gracious. Um and that's why, you know, the old old wives tales of like we'll pour boiling water down in in the mound and that'll kill everything. How much water is it gonna take to uh to fill up 25 feet worth of uh worth of tunnels?

SPEAKER_04 14:39

Or even worse, somebody you know trying to help but pouring gasoline or something like that on that. That's a no. Uh so you know, can you just go over the the life cycle of them in general?

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Yeah, absolutely. Um so one thing about the fire ants is they are pretty similar to normal normal ant colonies, and I I gotta be careful here that I don't share too much because we got so we got a few trivia questions uh coming up later on associated with the the fire ants that I that I want to keep in. But they follow that same uh hierarchy structure that a normal ant colony does with the queen, the worker insects. They do have winged uh varieties that have different functions, and they're they're capable of replacing the queen just like all the other um traditionally thought-of ant colonies as well. And one benefit that we have to that life cycle management is some of our traditional insecticides that are much less detrimental to insect populations as a whole can be effective, which it's one thing that uh it's important to me personally because one thing that I've always struggled with being in professional agriculture is that balance with the conservation side. Some of our farming practices aren't necessarily conducive to great con conservation practices. And it's something that I always struggle with being a sportsman and being in the business of agriculture and helping people out. You want to do what's best for both of those industries. And sometimes that's a difficult task, but because we have the ability to do some of that life cycle management in this case, we have some targeted things that we can do that aren't going to wreck populations of insects as a whole and can be more targeted towards these invasive pests.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

Well, that's a good way to to think about it for sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

So uh the the whole fire ant thing, is it a like a a full-time project for people there? Are y'all just constantly working on just oh, I just see them everywhere. And uh just how big of a problem are they?

unknown 16:56

Huge.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

They're they're huge. And and one of the other struggles with it, because there are so many different species, they do have different feeding habits in some cases, different life cycle uh tendencies, uh, different different structural hierarchies to deal with. So not one, you know, one solution isn't doesn't always fit every one of those populations. So there's constantly a need to kind of refine what is our our target bait solution, what's our target uh past management strategy going to be based on what we actually have in there. Um Central Life Sciences as a whole, we manufacture a ton of different products. And what's unique to us, we can share the same uh molecules across different platforms. And I'll I'll touch on one for a second and talk about uh molecule called S-methoprine. So methoprene is something that the insects naturally produce, it's part of their life cycle, and they secrete a certain amount of methoprene that tells them, okay, it's time to evolve from one life cycle into the next. So when they go from that larval to pupa to adult, they're going to secrete a certain amount of S methoprene. Think of it like testosterone or estrogen in mammals, and this is something that is unique just to the insects. Well, if we can expose them to more S methoprine in that moment, it kind of sends their body into haywire mode and they don't make that leap. They don't like progress in their life cycle. Well, if they can't get to adulthood, they can't produce a replacement population. So, in effect, what we've done is create birth control for books.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

Got it. So uh methoprene and and what little I know about it is referred to an IgR or an insect growth regulator. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_02 18:51

That is correct. But so way before my time with Central, they they uh took this molecule, and well, it works on tons of different insect species. So it's used in the manufacture of dog and cat uh flea collars, it's used for ins uh mosquito control, it's used for stored product pests, like uh with red flower beetles or confused flower beetles, anything like that. It's also used in fly control for uh like a feed-through product on cattle, has all these different uses. But in the case of fire ants, we kind of have to look at their feeding habits and what they do and how they do it. So a worker is going the ideally the process that happens is a worker ant is going to collect some of this food to bring back to the queen. Because one thing that's uh it's not unique to the fire ants, but it it is how their queen operates is she only eats food that the colony brings back to her. So that molecule needs to be impregnated in whatever sort of bait source there is, be capable of surviving long enough to get back to the queen and for her to come into contact with it and for it to then work its way through the colony to provide effectiveness. So you have this funny window of it can't work too fast, but it can't work too slow. And what's that time frame look like of when that ant collects it and brings it back to the queen to be able to hit it just right? And that that kind of what what really dictates is well what different types of molecules are going to be effective at controlling fire ants. And that's also gonna go into well, where do I put the stuff? Is it broadcast spread out? Do I target it on the mounds? And it's it's unique to the different situations, and that's where we get back into that. Well, it's integrated pest control. We kind of have to look at each individual scenario and decide what fits best. But if we can provide some guidelines for folks to be able to just do a simple checklist and say, Well, yeah, I have that, or yeah, I have that, then we get a guide work for them to follow.

SPEAKER_04 20:57

Yeah, that's interesting. And all that's on the label.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

Yeah, so uh so Johnny, let let's um before we get into understanding some products at work, can can you touch base on your thoughts on if you've got a covey quail and you've got hens out there and they're they're laying they're laying eggs and those eggs crack. Are are these fire ants getting into those eggs? And what about a little uh uh fawn that just gets born is wet with all that fluid? And uh what can you what are your thoughts there?

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Uh here's another fascinating one, and I'm sure it's gonna surprise everyone out there. Not all scientists can agree on what actually happens, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. I can I can share some different opinions as well as my own opinion when it comes to this. So there is a lot of research that indicates during that hatch cycle, if we're talking about an an upland bird or really any sort of uh ground nesting bird or even even some of the higher up ones. Because these these ants aren't just limited to directly on the ground. If they can get to a fruit food source, they're going to do it. When that hatch cycle starts to work its way through that process, it's not an instantaneous hatch, as I'm sure you're all well aware. It takes time for that pulp to actually emerge from that egg. And in that time, they're in a very vulnerable state. And if you have a high enough population and high enough presence of something like a fire an, they're going to be able to signal back to their home base that there is an active food source going on and they're going to send reinforcements in that moment. Well, if they're nearby a a clutch of eggs or any sort of nesting area and that hatch starts to go, all of their different receptors are going to recognize there's a food source there that's active. And if it takes that chick a certain amount of hours to be able to fully emerge from that egg and you know become reasonably aware of its surroundings, that is the time when the fire ants are going to strike and they're going to get in there and infest. And there's there's a lot of research around well, what does that population need to be to effectively decimate that clutch of eggs? It depends what research paper you read, really, on what that population is. In in my opinion, if we're dealing with something like fire ants, where they do have a uh venomous sting to them, that is going to be a lot harsher to any emerging chick. And then we get in that survival of the fittest. That uh the the rest of the covey is gonna leave anything that's not fit behind. And even if they do recover from that sting, if it's enough to hold them back, well, that's gonna result in a mortality event that'll affect the chick. But then we have the flip side of that, where insects are a viable food source. So is uh the rest of the covey present? Is is this attracting uh some of those ants and they're able to feed on it? Is it good for that initial food source? Because you have that certain amount of time that's like the sunshine period that that chick needs to emerge and start feeding. And certainly a high protein source like an insect or an ant is going to be very beneficial to that chick. And I think it all goes back to, well, how much is too much? But in terms of fire ants and just how they swarm different areas, I think just a little can become too much for them. So now we look at our preventative strategies, and now it's even more important to be targeted with our solutions because we don't necessarily want to kill off the good ants that aren't you know producing a venomous sting and and you know wrecking covies. We want to just target those bad invasive species.

SPEAKER_04 24:56

That that makes it tough. And you know, so you you know, using something broad spectrum, you're obviously going to take out a lot of beneficial insects, and that that's what these baby birds eat. And so uh, you know, that's what you're doing is explaining how you have to be very targeted uh when you're developing a product like this, uh, that it's not affecting those those things.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

So I believe earlier in the podcast it was asked, well, how do we use this stuff? Do I broadcast spread it? And and the answer is yes. It is on the label to do something like a broadcast spread. Um, but but really if we're if we're managing ground for pure conservation, that's where we want to get really specific and go out and target those mounds and apply whatever treatment. It doesn't even necessarily have to be our product, but there's different molecules like spinocids that are very effective against fire ants. But if we can get in there nearby that mound and target our um our remedy to it and keep it from spreading out to into other areas, because one thing about fire ants, it's pretty obvious where that mound is. They don't keep it a secret. And if we can if we can leave that bait relatively close to them, we can do a very effective job of that that targeted solution.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

So I think you're explained to me finally, I never had anybody tell me or explain that that how much more effective like the granular baits are at taking out the whole colony as opposed to just something you drench them with. Because I mean I've done that so many times and have a big mound and drenched them, and you know, uh in a matter of a week, another mound just not far or adjacent for it pops up. And I know it's the same ones, and I knew I didn't know how much or how big that obviously there was a bunch underground I wasn't getting to, but what you're telling us that the most effective thing for make possibly taking out the whole colony under a big mound is the granulars that they take to the Queen and all, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Yeah, and and I'm a very big proponent of different extension agencies. So if we look at different institutions like uh Texas AM, Mississippi State, Florida, they all have very, very good uh extension articles on different ways to manage fire ants and identifying them and everything like that. And by and large, most of them try to take like a two-stage approach. And part of that two-stage is using those granular applications as well as uh some of the other steps to mitigate them as well. And then certainly quarantine practices uh play into that. So maybe it's two-step, maybe it's a three-step, but doing multiple things is uh just gonna increase your chance of success astronomically.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Yeah, Mississippi State uh I spent a little time studying theirs. I've been biting fire ants over there. And I've you so he's mentioning this product called Extinguished. Toxie's got a jug sitting next to him. You did a it it's very effective. And Mississippi State was recommending that you do it three times a year and you use the holidays. You use Easter on the 4th of July and Labor Day as uh targets. I guess that probably makes sense to you too, Johnny.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

It it's funny because no matter what product I'm talking about within our line, our biggest competition is non-usage and people forgetting to use it or forgetting to turn on a switch or anything like that. And so given a little anecdote like, okay, we're supposed to change our smoke detector batteries twice a year on uh you know, spring forward or fall back, if we can have that same system when it comes to fire ant bait, and then certainly that first application, in my opinion at least, is gonna be the most critical because if we're looking at, well, when do insect populations really start to hit their peak, when do they start to bloom? That's right during hatch season. That's when our birds are going to be the most vulnerable or fawn or or anything else uh when that initial emergence happens. So not that the other ones aren't important, but certainly hitting that first one is critical.

SPEAKER_04 29:06

Well, we we know that from uh you know trapping uh egg nest nest predators.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Yeah, and I question along those lines in the granulars, um, and I know there's got to be a lot of different ones, a lot of different active ingredients, but have do people like in a broad scale, like uh a government agency or a landowner with lots of capital to use it want to uh do like crop duster applications in a broad area type of deal, or is it always just like locally applied?

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Yeah. The name of the game now is unmanned aerial aircraft and drones. You know, I grew up back in uh in Kansas and as a kid you'd see crop dusters fly over all the time, but now you look at the price of aviation fuel, pilot's license, the cost of the planes themselves and maintenance, compare that to an agriculture drone, you know, they're a lot more expensive than going on Amazon and buying a drone for a hundred bucks. But say we're talking five grand and you've got hot swappable batteries that you can put on, and uh, you know, then you can take that precision mentality, and yeah, it's that escalation game of the more cool toys we get on a drone, the more expensive it gets. But if we can be very targeted in our approach and use mapping software and cameras and really laser it in, because the the other kicker is a lot of these areas are really, really broad out there. You're not walking it, you're not covering it in a four-wheeler, even a lot of times. So it all it takes is time. And if we can reduce that time and and and overall input cost because of that, we're gonna be better off for it.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Well, even if you just contact a local drone operator person, it seems like a lot more practical than even a herbicide application because uh as I look at this jug you left here, a pound and a half and it says treats an acre. So I mean a drone will carry what 20 gallons of water is the I guess it's federal regulation, but that's what eight pounds times twenty, what 160 pounds. You're talking a hundred acres? You know, in one in one drone flight. That's pretty practical, you know. It covers a lot of ground too. So I mean the drone uh sounds like would be real effective for use, you know.

SPEAKER_04 31:27

Yeah, and you know, folks like me, I've I've got a relatively small place. Um I'm I'm thinking about targeting areas that I I know in the past um I've I've seen hens nesting and such. So uh I'm gonna hit the garden where I'm always hanging out and maybe some around the gate, and and then I may go in on some of these areas that historically are known to be good nesting areas and and look for some beds to treat there.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Yeah, speaking of that too, to Target, I'm just thinking back. I mean, I'm kind of in my yard, especially not as much on land. I'm kind of like a picture the the caddyshack and the the gophers and the war with them. I mean, I've been through so many wars trying to get fire ants like away from my house and stuff like that, and just you know. But um it seems like I don't see much activity in mounds in like the timbered shaded areas. And it's really all around open fields and stuff. So I mean that should you could you kind of skip, you know, all up in the woods, basically, and hit the roads and the open fields and and get most of them?

SPEAKER_02 32:34

They do like sunlight, they love direct sunlight. So you're gonna see most of that out there in those open field environments, and you know, uh again, they like heat to go along with that, so if they can get that radiant heat from the sunlight, they're gonna be better off for it. So uh, you know, now we contrast that with where do some of these nesting birds like to uh like to lay. It can be more of that, you know, dense shrub ground or or wooded and timbered areas, not always right in that area, but if if we can eliminate the areas nearby that are still in traveling distance for those ants, that's gonna be pretty key. But I certainly wouldn't want to try and fly one of them drones through timber or anything.

SPEAKER_04 33:18

Yeah, so like you know, you're early, you're you know, we're all about managing and uh, you know, trying to create that early successional habitat, which you know can be nesting or brooding, and both of those areas are probably gonna get a lot of sunlight. So I would like to think you would just want to focus on those areas that have the most sun and have the most bare ground where your baby birds are gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

And you know, I notice if you have disc to fill up to plant, there seems to be way more activity than if it's just left alone, you know. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Um yes, that is absolutely true.

SPEAKER_04 33:55

Um, and and one thing I thought about before we go any further, you know, um I did look up some of these peer-reviewed studies. I um I I don't know if there's much research on wild turkeys, but um I found uh peer-reviewed studies, uh bluebirds, uh shriks, virios, uh never heard of the Atwaters prairie chicken, uh, but but it exists, uh, and Mississippi sandhill cranes. Um and and what a lot of those studies are showing is that um you know it can it can affect nest success, obviously, um, but also the um the way indirectly, you know, they may be um affecting other insect species that these birds eat. Um the chickadee study found that in the areas where there were fire ants, um, the parent birds were not bringing as much food back to the nest. And and that, you know, that would definitely affect their you know their weights and their survival. So there is peer-reviewed studies to back the fact that fire ants are affecting bird species. I just wanted to throw that out there. Um, you know, habitat is probably you know a much bigger deal, but the fire ants obviously are affecting our birds. And and peer-reviewed studies have proven that.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

Johnny, uh I wanted to, I was gonna one of my I had three questions written down here I wanted to ask you. Food plots were one, but I think you just answered that when Tysi said that about plowed fields. So that would be a place they would be attracted to, not only for sunshine, but for uh recently dis dirt that might be easier to build mounds in. But we do a lot of, we preach fires and we're learning to do uh put put fire on the landscape at different times of the year. If you run a fire through a place in the summertime, I guess they can run down the hole and get down in the colony, and it's probably not gonna bother them, but you're gonna get those that are out there hunting that day, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Yeah, unfortunately, it just doesn't reach far enough down into it. I think that's gonna be a a more topical short-term remedy where you're gonna see those mounds pop up pretty quick after that. And and we've burned down the shrubbery, which is great from the conservation side, but now we've given them access to even more direct sunlight and those conditions they want.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Would it would the logic be that though if you did burn and you scorched the earth and you got lots of fire ants, obviously didn't hurt them much, but they're not going to have much to pick from then. So doing this application at that time might ensure that more of it's taken down underground, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

That that's actually the perfect assist, the perfect assist there, and I'll take that ball. Right then, now you can go out there and you can easily identify where all those mounds are. You know, I said earlier the mounds are obvious. Well, they're not always obvious. I've certainly stepped on one by accident, and they're not all two feet tall. Some of them are a lot shorter than that, or if they're emerging mounds, you can certainly find them a heck of a lot easier. So if you have the ch if you have the time to go out there during after a controlled burn and hunt these things down, you're exactly right. They're going to be short on food sources, probably more likely to pick up that bait. Their populations are going to be stressed, so they're going to be scavenging for more food, and it might be the perfect time to be able to give them that one-two punch.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

That sounds good. I was just thinking about applying like the granular part, but Dudley, it just occurred to me. I know we mocked one up one time, but I also think they're available that that uh kind of a cedar, natural seed, or even food plot seed with a a blower type of thing. Yeah. You would think you, because you could just, I'm thinking about how could I cover a lot of ground and not have stopped? And what always worried me about a hand cedar deal is I'm getting it on me and I don't want a pesticide on me. So, but one of those blower things, you could there's a man Extreme Blower. They advertise in our magazine, they make really good products, it should be perfect. Yes. Extreme blower. I mean, you'd have to calibrate it to how much you want to put out, but that might be a really quick, fast, easy way to cover ground and cover a lot of mounts.

SPEAKER_04 38:12

Sure. And you know, the label probably covers all the protective equipment you know you would need to wear for that particular product. Right. And so if you were using a broadcaster, you know, an over-the-shoulder broadcaster, you could just follow the label and uh wear the appropriate PPE.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

Johnny, are any of these big quail plantations in the South uh applying this in large acreage amounts? Yeah. Or Texas deer hunting places?

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Yes. Yes, to both of those, actually. And it's funny that the that chickadee study was brought up. If it's the one I'm thinking of, we were actually involved in in one, and their primary focus was on some of the songbirds, but they did get into some of the commercial quail side as well because one of their habitats was somewhat nearby a uh a quail production facility. But you know, whenever you're looking at it from a livelihood standpoint and your mortality statistics are so critical to the business of, well, do we make money and keep geta providing the service or or are we gonna go under? Something like that is it really plays into the decision-making process. And the same with um on any sort of uh uh deer ground. Well, if you look at the effect that something like a fire ant has just on the overall animal stress, and I can't necessarily speak to deer in particular, but I do know uh there are some horse operations out in California where they have realized a noticeable change in not only the behavior of the animals, but also like performance gains. And if you you know, part of it's probably common sense of if they're not stressed out and they're not fighting this thing, they're gonna be more relaxed and they're gonna perform better and they're gonna nutritionally do better because their body's not fighting off this other stuff as well.

SPEAKER_04 40:09

Good point. Uh I forgot to mention quail when I mentioned some of those studies. There's there's studies on quail as well where they affect them.

SPEAKER_03 40:16

Yeah. So so Johnny, all right, let's talk about this extinguished product, it's the one I've got a little from Dudley. I think you've used some of them as well. So talk about applying it, how you would do it, how do you get one and a half pounds over an acre, the best methods, and then talk about mound treatments. But I'd also like to know like is this potentially gonna impact some other insects that might the little bluebirds that are around that I see, or is it gonna potentially be detrimental to them?

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Yeah, though those are very important questions to ask before you actually run out there and use it. And I always like to give the uh chance to answer some of these things before folks just rush out and and start tossing around product everywhere. You I love the line that you said earlier, reading the label. It's something that everyone has a very, very difficult time with now. I don't know if reading comprehension has just gotten more difficult or if the the speed of the world has gotten so fast, but I promise that everything is on the label if you really dive into it. It might not be very fun to read EPA labels, but it will be on there. Um, when we're looking at how to actually apply a granular product in a in a uniform spread, there's a few different things that we can do. And and I actually don't know this for sure on Extinguished Plus, but on a lot of products, you can combine them in more of a tank mix setup. So if you are broadcast spreading other things, they can be mixed in with there. Again, don't know on Extinguished Plus, but that's a very common thing to do as far as like the herbicide and uh pesticide game goes is to be able to tank mix it. Well, now we've got a larger volume, it's easier to more accurately apply a larger volume in those situations. Certainly doing the targeted mound um setup makes it much easier to be precise in in dosing and stuff like that. But then also looking at the active ingredients on a product label and the relative safety of it. You know, EPA doesn't like that word safety, but at least in our heads we can build this hierarchy of what's what do I absolutely positively not want to get near me, or what if it touches me, I can walk over a sink and wash it off. And with Extinguish, it's got two active ingredients. It's got that S methoprine for um for the uh insect growth regulator, and then um Extinguish Plus has hydromethanon in it, and that kind of acts as the the adulticide. It's again not something that you want to be eating spoonfuls of it or anything, but in the hierarchy, comparing it to different ag chemicals and stuff that we have available, it's a lot less uh caustic of ingredients comparatively. So I that's always an important thing that I like to bring up to people is be safe, do what you're comfortable with, but reading the label, it's gonna make it to where you're not scared of something anymore, and that um knowledge becomes a power.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

For sure. So the the extinguisher, that jug that Toxie's shaking around over there, it's a granular. It's so you you would you could put that in a little hand seater and put it on the smallest setting and just get some good exercise walking walking around till you put all that out, I guess is the appropriate way to do that. And then along the way, if you see a mound or two, could you just put a spoonful on each one, so to speak?

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Yeah, so that there are uh listed rates for uh if you're doing a Targeted mound and um versus that broadcast spray. And certainly uh you could do both as long as you don't exceed you know the a total amount per area or anything like that. But then you kind of look at the frequency of well, how often do I do this? And and also what conditions do I do it under? An issue that we see sometimes, and you know, we can't always control the weather, and we like rain, but maybe we don't like rain uh coming immediately after we put bait out and have it be washed away because that uh that bait does encapsulate some of the active ingredients and gives it protection, but if that rain will wash it out and you'll see uh a big decrease in effectiveness after that. We certainly don't want to waste money when it comes to that.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

Well, what about the insects for the little bluebirds and chickadees and stuff? Are are we running a risk there?

SPEAKER_02 44:54

And that's where you know it it's going to be effective on any ant that picks it up and and brings it back. So some of our good ant species, like I said before, we don't want to, if we're doing this from a conservation standpoint, we want to keep them around. So I think then it becomes more critical. Well, can I just look at a mound targeting strategy and maybe introduce a drench and a granular product targeted to the mounds while not doing a broad uh application?

SPEAKER_03 45:25

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 45:26

That makes sense. Um I'm reading the label right now. It says two to five level tablespoons uh per you know imported fire ant mound. Well distribute bait uniformly around the mound, do not disturb the mound, do not apply more than two pounds per acre. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

Well, I've used uh the extinguish uh started a couple of years ago. I had so many fire ants, and it I could tell a big difference, but the people right down the road weren't doing it. And it just seems like here here they come again the next year. It's a never end of battle. Are we gonna get ever can we gain control over these things? Give us some hope.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

That's the tough part of it. It you know, some of that quarantine and eradication, it's so dependent on what everyone else does. And that's why, you know, if you go on to any of those extension websites, they pretty well state in black and white, we're never getting rid of this problem. It is all about the management of this problem. And we're gonna try to do the effective manage management of this problem moving forward, because I doubt we get a freeze hard enough to kill them all. I doubt we convince every single person out there that owns property or manages property to do this in a way that can eradicate them.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

You know, again, this is anecdotal, and speaking from my little caddyshack uh comparison, but it in my house, I mean it got in where they were getting into the house, and it was driving me crazy and into the patio and all. So I've been on the war path for 10 years plus, and it just seems like they're still there. Obviously, the house is an attractant to them because there's gonna be more sources of food than just out in the middle of nowhere, but they're further and further away. There's like nothing going on around the house anymore, and it's just it's almost like the the raccoons or the coats, when you trap them, they just they get they they seem to learn to avoid the areas you've been trapping them and doing it for so long and kind of move out and the perimeters further out. I don't know why. Maybe it's just because I've killed them there more, but the more I poison them close to the house, then they're there, but you got to go further and further away. There just seems to be even more, it's just let's call it like 100 to 150 yards away from the house. There's actually more than there were when I started doing this, but there's almost none anywhere around the house. It's kind of a weird phenomenon, almost like, am I am I really doing at least I'm keeping it out of the yard for kids to get, you know, getting them on there.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

But it's and and I think probably what you're seeing is a lot of just that overall environmental population is just compounding so much. And it's not just your place, it's that's an everywhere problem. The the old anecdotal, well, I never used to have this problem before, and it seems like I have it all the time now. It's again very dependent on where are those populations that are going untreated and how bad are they, and how much are they ranging out to other areas.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

I mean, I honestly I would suggest to people, you know, landowner gamekeeper people to I'm gonna do a better job of it. I'm gonna find something really easy, really safe. I know this stuff is about as environmentally friendly as anything you could use, but at the same time, I still don't want it on me. Uh something that every time I could, you know, even if it's in the back of my truck when I'm passing, you know, ant mounds, especially. I know where they're just there've been one for years at the gate, going in and all up and down the side of the road, going into the cabin and stuff like that. Those are places you're gonna see them a lot and just keep it handy and just stay on top of them. I and then this is again, I've said it ten times today, anecdotal, but I remember being told about 10, 12, maybe even 15 years ago about a landowner in a state. I just I I actually can't even remember his name now. I just can't remember who told me about it that the guy had a spare no expense budget for wildlife, and he had taken to turkeys a lot, and he had crop dusters, and it supposedly there was something that was you had to apply it more often, but it was really environmentally safe. Nonetheless, he just said he applied to his whole place. And you're talking it was like 2,000 and something acres. And he said in the subsequent years that he had almost an explosion of wild quail coming back and turkeys. Now, again, that's just could be totally hearsay.

SPEAKER_04 50:01

Again, the the fire ants, you know, it it may cost you, I'm just thinking out loud here, like five to ten percent, you know, compared to uh I'm sure that guy was doing a lot of habitat work, you know, burning, thinning, all of that stuff, trapping nest predators. And uh, you know, when you do all that conjunct in conjunction, it works and it helps.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:25

Um, and the way I think about it, and I've I've heard other folks uh use this, but uh, you know, fire ants aren't supposed to be here. Uh neither is Kogon grass, neither is Japanese honeysuckle or Japanese cornorant. Bush honeysuckle. Um uh the the saying I've heard is while Russian hogs aren't supposed to be here. You gotta fight fire with fire. If we just sit here and let these things uh populate and get bigger, especially in areas where we're trying to improve the ecosystem and uh help the critters out, then it's just gonna continue to get worse. Yeah, and so you have to make a decision. Are are you gonna fight fire with fire or uh or not? And and that's up to every every person.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Well, I mean, we listened to you, and I may gave me encouragement. You don't we don't need to think and envision that we can wipe out fire ant fire ants to make a difference. What you're telling us, and that's backed up with research, is if you there's a if you can just reduce them, then you've pretty much eliminated the threat of that very uh that window where there's so you know, pulse and you know, babies are vulnerable. You know, so you you wouldn't have to think you have to just won't don't want people to think that it's just uh a battle you can't win, someone will give up. I I personally am gonna have more resolve than I've had before. I've uh thrown bait on some mounds and some places and whatever, but I mean literally I I got an hour this morning to do some bush hogging, and it was a feel that was pseudo-good clover, but I think I'm gonna clip it one time before I spray it. My point in saying that, I couldn't really see the ground good, and I'm I mean I took a jolt so many times from two-foot mounds out there, and I and I mean it's a pretty good sized tractor. I mean, I uh it scared me they were so bad. I think I want to do that whole field. You know, it's a pretty good sized area, but I mean in that particular case, I mean you're just you just got one targeted area. Maybe it's not a mound, maybe it's five acres or something, but yeah, I think it'll make a difference. I really don't.

SPEAKER_04 52:24

I mean, that's why we're that's why we're trapping uh trapping coons in February. You know, you were you were you were doing something targeted, you know, and that's that's how you do it.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

So I think that economic threshold is something to really keep in mind. We could bankrupt ourselves performing any sort of management strategy, whether it's predator management, whether it's pest management, anything like that for total eradication. Well, is that total eradication versus 95% eradication? Is there any meaningful difference between those two things? No. And a lot of times the answer is no. So it becomes the how good does it need to be to result in a meaningful change? And I don't know that there's an answer, a definitive answer to that, but I think that there's a common sense answer to that.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

John, let me ask you this. So the government uh through some of these little uh programs that you can sign up at your local county, you can get some assistance in uh removing Privet and Kudzu and some of these other invasive uh plants. Do you think it will come a day when you might could get some assistance to try to control your fire ants?

SPEAKER_02 53:36

I have heard of some programs. I I could not tell you off the top of my head which ones are still active uh versus non-active. Certainly uh there are a lot of grants uh style systems, and there's always going to be different research and extension foundations looking to perform new and novel research. And sometimes it's a matter of letting them come in there and do a research trial on your facility and you get some free treatment out of the deal. Um what what I really would like to see, and I I reference the hay issue. So there are certain counties down in Texas that have quarantine zones where you can't take failed hay out of those quarantine zones unless you can provide proof that you have done a treatment. Well, I'm not always a big fan of the financial penalty. I like the the inverse of that, where it's a financial reward for doing something or a free program that would subsidize the use in some of these cases rather than a slap on the hand for not doing it. So I I think that there's uh there's a lot of opportunity when it comes to stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 54:45

It's very interesting. And it I don't see it, but I'm like you, Toxie. You still got to go out there and give it your best. Oh yeah, absolutely. Do what you can on your place.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

I mean, well, I mean, it for us we got it like it's different in Mississippi. We've got a lot of drainage stuff, gets flooded a bunch of you. I I suspect we don't have many nests in that area, so you can just about forget about that. Uh, we don't have many mounds either. I see them on into the summer, maybe, but not much. Target those areas where, like Bobby said, you know whether we've got some really good nesting habitat. Target that, you know? Yeah. Johnny, what else should we be asking you? I I've got one more for him. So tell us about the phenomena of these rafts in duck season. So the first flood water and it's cold, and you literally, it looks like ant mounds with the piles of ants on top of the water in these rafts. And they get they get if you're not careful, they'll be all over your waders and everything. And even if it's cold, they're still crawling around. It's the weirdest thing. So is that water drowning them? Are they just spreading them up and down the river or the creek and they come back to life somewhere? I mean, what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 55:57

It is not drowning them, and it leads, it's one of those vector avenues that I was talking about. How do you how do you move stuff very effectively? Well, we humans found out a long time ago we can use water to move goods very effectively, and sometimes that same water gets used by the invasive pest to move around. So they form those rafts and they'll all cling together, and that provides a level of insul uh insulation from the heat and a uh like a protective sphere as well as there is some oxygen still available to them. So with a lot of animals, uh you kind of have to look at temperature in two different ways. There is a effectiveness temperature, and then a mortality temperature. And that temperature is a combination of temperature and time. So with a lot of stored product insects, say in a grain bin or something like that, 55 degrees Fahrenheit is kind of that first level of really starting to see the insect slow down. They're really starting to move a lot slower, their metabolism is dropping. It's a double-edged sword because pesticides need to work through that metabolic cycle. And if their metabolism is slowed down, that means it's not working as quickly. But they're moving slower, and then you have that mortality temperature. And for a lot of insects, it's that freezing temperature, but how long does it need to actually hold there? Well, the lower we get on the temperature scale, the shorter amount of time it needs to be. So if we're hovering at that just above freezing temperature, it could take weeks to actually result in mortality in some cases.

SPEAKER_04 57:41

So it's it's almost like a little survival trick they have. Like they've got their own little Noah's art to push them to some dry land and then and then they can populate it.

SPEAKER_00 57:51

Well, they spread, and it spreads them all over the place.

SPEAKER_03 57:53

So, so instead of staying in that sub underground, subterranean, they form these rafts.

SPEAKER_00 57:59

Well, I mean, yeah, imagine they would, you know, where all these uh mounds are in a floodplain, and you get three feet of water over them, they'll just drown if they don't float up and form mounds. So I'm sure it's a survival from the flood, right? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But y'all can remember that it's it's not like that later on in the year, but the first of duck season, it's unbelievable how many fire ants are on top of the water.

SPEAKER_04 58:23

They're nomadic.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

Yeah, there's it's it's a it's a worse uh curse word than that for me.

SPEAKER_04 58:30

There's they're a Johnny, it's a shame they're not a lot bigger or they may get more attention like like wild hogs do. You know, we get we do get assistance with with uh controlling pigs, um, but uh they're every they're literally a nightmare, a hog-sized ant.

SPEAKER_03 58:49

Yeah, yeah. Johnny, what else is interesting about these things that we should have asked you about?

SPEAKER_02 58:55

Let's see. Are you are you guys ready for my trivia question to you?

SPEAKER_03 58:59

You know, I guess we could. So let us open this segment up, Johnny. We uh we kind of Richie, wake up over there.

SPEAKER_05 59:05

I'm alive and well over here, Bobby.

SPEAKER_03 59:07

All right, Richie, what we got?

SPEAKER_05 59:09

All right. Uh so uh on you you mentioned you're an upland bird hunter. So on your upland bird trips, do you ever uh take boiled peanuts with you on the uh out in the field?

SPEAKER_02 59:20

I'm a little bit too far north for boiled peanuts to be a thing, but I do travel quite a bit in the south, so I've certainly been introduced to boiled peanuts.

SPEAKER_03 59:28

Yeah, aren't they good? Boy, we're a big fan.

SPEAKER_05 59:31

So I'm yeah, so our trivia here is brought to us by our buddies at the Peanut Patch. And so, but um we had a listener who left a review on Spotify, CH. Uh he listened to uh episode number 437, uh Florida Turkey Project with Dr. Lashley. Uh says, great episode. Long live the wild turkey.

SPEAKER_04 59:53

Amen. Yeah, CH.

SPEAKER_05 59:56

Judo.

SPEAKER_03 59:57

So all right, here's our uh we're gonna send CH one of these shows. Blackmastered by illusion. It's uh bottomland deer. You kill a big deer, you mount it, mount your antlers. Yeah, or a little deer.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:10

DIY deer, right? Yeah, that'd be that'd be great.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:13

Illusion technologies. Better in bottom land. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:18

All right, so our trivia is Wait, wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:21

He's gonna ask me.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:22

You sure you don't mean to ask this question?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:25

I tell you what, we prepared to ask you a question, Johnny. So let's ask you one first, okay? Who's gonna fire the bullet first in the deal?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:33

Here we go, Mr. Johnny. Is a banana a vegetable, fruit, or a berry?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

I think it's a berry, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:44

Yeah, he got that right. No way. But there's also another layer to that. Go ahead, Richie. Entertain everybody. He's wearing you out.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:52

We're already entertained. Scientifically speaking, a banana is both a berry and a fruit. Botanically, a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single flower with one ovar uh one ovary, a description that fits bananas. While the there are culinary fruits, they meet all botanical requirements for a berry, which include having seeds inside. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:22

There you go. Well, so we learned something. Did you know that, Dudley?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:25

That was gonna be my guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:27

Well, he said both, because if you'd have said a fruit, you'd have been right too. We had we threw vegetable in there to try to trip him up just a little bit. Dudley, I mean, uh, Richie, uh, are you embarrassed to say ovary?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:38

No, no, we're good, Bobby. I didn't read through that first, so it kind of caught me off guard there. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:42

All right, so Johnny, you got that one right. There's a bunch of fabulous prizes that'll be making their way to you there in uh uh St. Charles, Missouri. Now, have you got a question for us? For Bobby, actually. We're playing for a truckload of extinguished fire ant poison.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:57

I've got a two-part question, and hopefully this one doesn't get you in trouble with your uh spouses.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:04

Okay. If it will, I promise you I will abstain from answering.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:08

Okay, so we've got the queen and we've got the worker ants. So the first part of the question which one of them do you think takes more naps during a day?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:23

Naps, ants take naps. I'm just gonna say that since um, you know, um I'm saying the workers. Because that might make the wife mad, the queen. So that's my answer.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:39

All right, we're sticking with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:41

Yeah, Taxy, you gotta say. Is everybody on board with that? Well, Taxis is with the workers being the nap takers. Yeah, I guess I would think they would never the way ants go, they never they never stop. But uh yeah, I'm not gonna book Dudley on Time.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:55

So let hey Johnny, let me ask, because there's a guy here that is just taking a recent nap.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

What do you think, Richie?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:02

I wouldn't say the queen.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

Okay, you versus Dudley.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:07

I mean, the queen deserves to take more naps, but the way he worded it, um I'm just gonna go with the workers.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:14

So so mama's tired and she sleeps more than the workers do, but the workers do take more naps. Oh my god. So the second part of the question, how many naps do the workers take in a day?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

Oh, there's no way. You gotta give us like multiple.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:31

Okay, we'll we'll bracket this. We'll see.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:34

I'm gonna say more than one.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

More than more than one? So is it single digit, double digit, or triple digit?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:41

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

Double. I'm going with triple. Yeah, I was gonna say because because it's so I may ask you this. How long does it have to be to be considered an hour? Seconds? Minutes?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:59

Oh I'm you know my my aunt uh sleep cycles.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

I'm not that accurate on there, but I mean I will triple figures if they're you know ten minutes long or more, it's like there's not enough time. But if they're just like little brief, you know, they probably get a power nap in whatever 30 seconds or something. Who knows?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:22

Maybe so, like an ultra marathon runner.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

So I think uh I think little cat little brief cat naps is the the best way to describe it. Micro naps.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:34

I'm I'm I'm gonna stick with my man daily.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:38

All right, well, it is triple digits. They somewhere in the range of like 290 naps.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:44

Good gracious.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:45

Yeah, and I think the queens are closer to like 90 naps throughout the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:51

So we are there's a trivia question for people out there is um so if a if a a grown man, whatever, 180-pound grown man, was the str had the strength of an ant, how much could he pick up? There's a there's a number there, and I've forgotten what it is, that's crazy. Because I mean we traveled to Costa Rica, they were shell the ants, little, not that big ants, carrying these huge like sticks and leaves and stuff around. And then someone threw out the I guess it was a tour guide or whatever there about how much if a if uh a man was the strength of an ant, what he could how many, you know, how much weight could he pick up. It's crazy. Do you have that number or the comparison?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:36

The one that I've always heard is that if uh an ant were human size, they could pick up a car.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

That's what I've heard, something like that. Couple of tons. A couple of tons that a man could pick up. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:47

Yeah, I don't know if that's a Ford Pinto or uh an F 250.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:52

Yeah, either way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:55

I can't tell you either, so I'm gonna say it's impressive.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:57

So very impressive. John, if a guy wanted to. Buy some of this extinguished, where's the best place to get it? Uh like our friends at Nutrient Ag Solutions, can they can they pick it up at their stores?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:06

Well, it was handy that you mentioned nutrient earlier because they were actually a dealer for us. So they have a lot of our uh various ag chemicals in stock, so that's actually a very good place to purchase it from. How about that?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:19

Yeah, good deal. So, guys, are you checking out herbicides and whatnot else? Check out this extinguished and some of their other uh ant products.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:26

Um and I will say it is priced very well considering how much how much area it covers.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

Um, I was looking at when we when it came up today, I was looking online at you know, you can buy but um treats 30 acres fairly reasonable. It really is, especially for the benefits you get back from it. Sure. And I mean you're gonna spread it a lot further if you just treat mound specific only, you're gonna really get a big area out of a jug of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:53

Yeah. Johnny, we've enjoyed talking to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:57

Well, I appreciate you having me. I've enjoyed speaking to you all as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

You ever traveled down this way at all? We can show you some fire ant mounds for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:06

I do. I'll I'll I guess I'll be in uh southern Arkansas here in a month or so doing some training with rice country guys. I might just have to keep driving.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

Why do I real quick, why do they thrive in these heavy clay soils more than in sandy soils? Is there any particular reason just because but it holds moisture better or something?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:25

I'm sure that there is a reason. I'm gonna take the classic tech answer of I don't know the exact reason for that, so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. Man, they love they are if if I had to take a guess, my guess would be that their tunnel systems are able to be a lot more rigid in those uh soil compositions and they're less likely to collapse and long-term viability of the colony is gonna be better.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:53

I've always thought it was neat how um when you know the the fire ant mound dies or whatever, uh it gets like really green around the mound. So I'm I'm wondering if they're you know releasing something. I guess they're aerating the soil.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:09

I figures the roots, you know, when our clay soiled it loosened roots.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:14

I've always enjoyed, and um it's a little tough to do, you gotta work quickly, but but when you're out planting trees, you can plant a tree right next to a fire ant mound and put your drive your stake and put your tube around it real quick and and then come back and and you know get rid of that mound, treat the mound, and for whatever reason, those trees grow way faster than the ones that aren't by mound.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

I've actually done that on a couple, but I actually I treated the mound first, came back the next day.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:44

Well, you're smart, you're smarter than me.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:46

Yeah. All right, guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:48

Richie, we got anything else? That's about it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:50

Yeah, it's about it. Uh yeah, we've got one more thing to say though, actually. Uh, you know, we still we got the giveaway going on, so make everybody make sure they sign up, grilla grills and gorilla meats, and uh so there's a lot of giving away in that, a lot of prize package going on there. So make sure you sign up.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:05

Um it's not too late to get get your uh warm season mixes planted. Um vetch, uh protein peas, you know, you name it. Soybeans. Soybeans. I mean, now is the time to get them in the ground.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:20

Guys, choice getting ready for ducks won't be too long. Sure won't. Nope. Johnny, you look exhausted. I'm sorry. We have we have just worn you out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:28

Nope. All good on my end.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:30

All right, guy. Well, we enjoy it. We looked at great guests. Thank you for that. Enjoyed getting to know you. Yeah, tell all those guys uh back there uh we said hello. Appreciate y'all. All right. Uh looking around the room, why don't you say goodbye, Dudley? Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Richie.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:47

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Game Keeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Game Keeper Farming for Wildlife magazine, and don't miss the Montio Properties Fistful of Dirt podcast with my good buddy, Ronnie Cud Strickland.