Earwigs Used To Protect Pome Fruits

Earwigs Used To Protect Pome Fruits Rolls of corrugated cardboard are easy devices for capturing earwigs, a major pest in stone fruits like peaches and cherries. The earwigs can then be released in apple and other pome fruit orchards where they’re beneficial. The concept was developed by a research team at Washington State University (WSU) and Oregon State University, with funding through the Temperate Tree Fruit and Vegetable Research Unit, Wapato, Wash. “Earwigs are predators of many different pests in pome fruits, but they’re very poor dispersers,” reported Aldo Hanel, a WSU graduate student and lead author. He presented the results at the 2024 North Central Washington Tree Fruit Days Conference. He explained that earwigs crawl around from 10 p.m. until 3 or 4 a.m. and aren’t seen during the day. The researchers found they could mass-trap earwigs using simple-to-construct cardboard rolls. They cut 4-in. by 250-ft. cardboard rolls into 30-in. lengths. “The 250-ft. roll costs about $10, and we were able to make 250 traps in about 90 min.,” said Hanel. “In 2021 and 2022, we attached them to cherry trees, returning in about a week to check for earwigs. We removed them weekly and in two years, had captured 50,000 earwigs.” The stone fruit pests were released in groups of 100 in pome fruit orchards every other week from June through August. In June, a mass release of 500 was made in other orchards. The researchers started seeing results in the second year. While the mass trapping in the cherry orchard didn’t reduce depredation there, repeated removal did reduce the population over the two years. The mass release in the pome fruit orchards did reduce the level of woolly apple aphids and pear psylla. The researchers found that the multiple releases helped control population increases, but couldn’t reduce already high populations. Earwig benefits were seen in orchards where integrated pest management was practiced, but not where broad-spectrum insecticides were used. “The earwigs are easy to capture and release, but they aren’t a silver bullet for pest control,” suggested Hanel. “However, they’re a low-cost technique and can use off-season labor. They also encourage using milder pesticides in the orchards where they’ve been released.” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Temperate Tree Fruit and Vegetable Research, 5230 Konnowac Pass Rd., Wapato, Wash. 98951 (ph 509-454-4463; www.ars.usda.gov/pacific-west-area/wapato-wa/temperate-tree-fruit-and-vegetable-research/).

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