I lost 3 of the 6 antique apple cultivars that I ordered four years ago to borers despite going the rotenone / latex paint route. I have since grown out some apple benchgrafts that have now been in the ground 1 year. Fire ants have built mounds around 2 of them above the graft over the winter. Would the fire ants offer natural predator control or would you remvoe them? Thanks in advance.
Gene

Check and see what rootstock they are on. EMLA 111 has a bad problem with borers because the rootstock has a tendency to generate burr knots that allows the borers free access. What they recommend with EMLA111 is to plant the tree with the dirt coming about a inch from the graft union.

Thanks morphinelover, the rootstock is MM111. I would go out to admire my young trees, grasp a limb to look at the fruit, and the whole tree would snap off in my hand. J was able to save one tree by mounding dirt around it until it grew roots. Anyway, I was going to destroy the ant mounds but then I thought maybe the ants might attack potential borers and thus afford some protection.

Wood ash around the base of the tree is supposed to keep the borers away.

Laaz your right about the wood ashes. Where are you at that is having such borer problems because I just planted a bunch of old apple varieties on EMLA111 and I'm crossing my fingers that I don't have that problem. To me you can't beat the taste of the old apple cultivars like Roxbury Russet, Gravenstein, etc. In those days an apple cultivar was chosen because of how it taste alone unlike now days they care more about how it looks and its ability to get to the market without a blemish. Give me a lopsided, russeted, off colored old timey apple over anything you can buy in the store.

Morphinelover, I am located in central Mississippi about even with a line from Tuscaloosa to Aliceville, Alabama. I Started using wood ash from my greenhouse heater, as I had already been using it on my peach and plum trees. I think the intervention was just too late (for the apples). I also tried lye on my King David apple ( my favorite ) but it was pretty far gone (stunted) and I lost it. Someone had recommended the lye for a Black Walnut tree I had that was dying and it recovered really well, sprouting new limbs.
I want to think that I read somewhere that borers are worse in clay subsoil as the borers can travel freely in the cracks that open during dry weather.