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| If You Look Closely You May See Ants on Your Cherries |
If you have cherry trees, and you spend some time in Spring looking at them you may see troops of large ants moving up and down the branches.
In some cases ants on your plants may be a negative thing, as they can farm pests such as aphids, protecting them from predators and collecting sugary rewards they produce. Ants can also attack sweet developing fruits, and do some damage.
On your cherries however ants are a good thing!
For most of the year cherry leaves are bitter and unpalatable to most leaf eating insects, in Spring however the newly developing leaves are soft and tender, and a great target for a variety of caterpillars and other leaf eaters.
The cherry tree recruits the large ants in a symbiotic relationship to help defend the tree from these potential predators, and in return rewards its guardians with sweet nectar produced from small red lumps at the base of new leaves. The red lumps are nectar glands, sometimes called nectaries.
The ants will fiercely attack anything that may hurt the tree, reducing the need for pesticides, and so should be left alone to do their good work!
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| An Ant Feeding From a Nectary |
