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poisonous leafs

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:56 am
by Arrowing
Hi all,
I will get started with an lc ant colony soon
As i have read a lot about foodplants i came to the folowing conclusion;

If it's green they might cut it

Then i am wondering after reading whole (usefull) lists of accepted leafs
Is there anything that is really toxic/ dangerous / poisonous for the fungus?

I wouldnt like to make rookie mistakes :)

Re: poisonous leafs

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 9:13 am
by Acromyrmexbob
Because leaf cutters dont actually eat the leaves they cut it is virtually impossible to poinson them by offering toxic leaves. Often they will take leaves that are poisonous and use these for the fungus. As long as the leaves have not been sprayed with insecticide they are pretty much fine. My best advice is to gather a small amount of all the leaves you can get ahold of locally at the start and offer all of them in a pile. The ants will target one of these preferentially which can go to the op of your list. They will pick away at others which might be candidates for your list. In summer months pretty much all of the deciduous trees and shrubs are taken as well as lots of other plants. The secret is to try everything. In winter you will be restricted to privet, bramble, Rhododendron, laurel, acuba and several others. I lurk in Tesco car parks often, they tend to plant their borders with evergreen shrubs, some of which are good to use!