Hi all, moved to a new place with an established lemon tree, it’s quite unhappy and found ants all throughout. Any advice on best way to eradicate them without harming the tree? Located South East Coast Australia
Looks like carpenter ants in breeding season. I believe your tree is dying.
SpaceGoatAlpha
A liberal application of boric acid powder once a week for a month is a good place to start, but first see if you can follow the ants back to any see if there’s any sort of hive that you can also treat directly.
This is some pretty significant damage to the lemon tree and I’m not sure it’s going to be able to effectively recover. After the ants are gone and dead, I would recommend treating the exposed inner wood with a few layers of mineral oil or tung oil to help slow the decay. That might give it a couple more years. If there are branches that are more heavily damaged, it might be better for the tree to prune them away entirely, but I would recommend contacting an arborist for their recommendation first.
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Looks like carpenter ants in breeding season. I believe your tree is dying.
A liberal application of boric acid powder once a week for a month is a good place to start, but first see if you can follow the ants back to any see if there’s any sort of hive that you can also treat directly.
This is some pretty significant damage to the lemon tree and I’m not sure it’s going to be able to effectively recover. After the ants are gone and dead, I would recommend treating the exposed inner wood with a few layers of mineral oil or tung oil to help slow the decay. That might give it a couple more years. If there are branches that are more heavily damaged, it might be better for the tree to prune them away entirely, but I would recommend contacting an arborist for their recommendation first.