need help quickley

this is my first year of growing grapes, i have 9 grapevines, one is full of grapes ,the others is just started blooming. i am haveing trouble with ants on them,they have started eating the blooms off.what can i put on them to kill the ants, need help quickley

I wish I could help, but I've not heard of ants doing something like this before. My best advice would be to follow the ants if possible back to their colony and then bait the colony. Almost anything that you would spray on the plants for ants might also affect any insects coming to pollinate the flowers (is pollination needed for grapes?) and it will only get the few ants that are foraging. Finding the ant nest is the best way to be sure to get them all. If the nest isn't too close to the plants, you might be able to treat the colony with a liquid insecticide.

Another option might be to put some kind of sticky trapping material (such as tangle foot) on the bottom of the grape vines. If the leaves don't touch the ground, then the ants would have to travel up the vines to get to the flowers. The tanglefoot should get the ants as they are trying to go up, or down if they are leaving.

Good luck.

I think night bloom has some good ideas. Ants destroy flowers as a consequence of robbing the abundant nectar in the flowers. Seems that baiting the colony will be the only way to eliminate them and the damage.

thanks to both of you,can you tell me what tanglefoot is never heard of it

Tanglefoot is a very sticky substance used for catching insects. It is sometimes used in traps (like fruit fly traps). It comes in a bucket, but it's been years since I used it (on fruit fly traps in research), so I don't know where to get it anymore. A garden supply or feeed and seed store might have it though.

It will catch good insects though, and even birds if an area is too large, so I would make the bands small - like an inch thick or so. You might need to reapply with weather, but as long as the vines are the only way into the plants, the tanglefoot should stop the ants from reaching the flowers. Oh - also apply the tanglefoot to any supports that hold up the vines and have contact with the ground.

That coupled with baits should help solve your problem.

Good luck again.

well i went and tryed to find some tangle foot here, but they said they never heard of it,so i got on internet and i found it.so i order some, i have bunches of grapes hanging about 5 inches long and so full,but the new ones thats comeing on is dyeing becauce of ants.can,t wait far it to get here,thank you far your advice,will let you know how it works