In my morning chat with CHAT about pesticides I learned something new and exciting- earwigs, in spite of sometimes causing cosmetic damage to fruit are usually our allies and can be considered beneficial insects. They have big appetites for small, soft bodied insects like aphids and pear psyla.
Most of their feeding damage occurs on touching fruit, so it’s on you for not thinning properly.
How interesting! Thank you for sharing that!
When I bagged my fruit, I found a lot of earwigs inside the bags.
Thats interesting. They are a real pest on small apples which are growing in clusters, I get a ton of damage. But I didn’t realize they were doing good as well. I don’t spray pesticides and I have a ton of earwigs in my orchard. I also have a ton of ladybugs. It took many years to get up enough beneficial insects in the natural population but I haven’t had to spray for aphids at all for several years now. I think it’s mainly the ladybugs doing that since they breed like crazy but maybe the earwigs are also helping.
Yes, they are beneficial insects, but their fruit eating is not restricted to touching fruits. I rarely have touching fruits, but I get a lot of damage from earwigs. They are also skilled enough to make their way inside many of the individual fruit bags that I use.
I’ve never used fruit bags but it seems like that would be the equivalent of touching fruit. Nice little shelter for them.
I have lots of earwigs but very little damage from them. They were never a major pest, not just in my orchard but in any of the orchards I manage. Even the few that are poison free where Surround is the principle deterent.
I’ve had a big problem with earwigs boring into peppers. If I grow peppers this year I’ll try the rolled paper trap.
For me they’re mainly all over my bagged blueberries, though they rarely cause any notable damage
Hmmm, is that the culprit? I get some holes but I start my peppers early and in volume so always have more hot and sweets than I can use- and I stuff my freezer with them to use all year long. Something also chews the outside of the stems, but that could be slugs. I’ve never caught anything in the act of either crime.
Small holes in the pepper fruit. Often an earwig inside. Earwigs can bore a hole according to the internet. Perhaps something else bores the hole and the earwig moves in. Either way they damage the inside of the pepper.
What can you do for them?
I have caught earwigs boring into the side of a perfectly healthy Jonagold, but they mostly bore in around the stem.
Go outside at night to check on earwigs.
If they get reallt over populated they can cause damage, but generally theyre friends. Ive had it happened when I first put mulch down. Maybe they came with it or exploded to eat mulch idk
Either way a shallow bowl or like a tuna can with oil and soy sauce in it makes an excellent trap. Very few other bugs climb into it. Let me thin the population down nicely.
Tons of earwigs in my yard, gross numbers collecting under any object I leave out. Still have problems with aphids on cherries and plums though.
I’ve always heard of earwigs being kind of neutral to a gardening space. I know they aren’t really damaging anything, but they’re so unsightly and get in things. It’s artichoke season now, and I’ve got to shake all the icky earwigs out of them before I take them inside.
When theyre at a normal population theure mildly beneficial in that they eat dead matter and other bugs and improve soil. If their population booms they start eating flowers and food plants