Earwig-friendly spray programmes in apple and pear crops

Earwigs are important predators of pests in apple and pear crops, preying on aphids, mussel scale, codling moth and pear sucker. Growers can use strategies to avoid the use of certain harmful products at key times of the season, while also using management techniques to protect and enhance earwig populations. This guide helps growers to develop these strategies and to construct earwig-friendly spray programmes. It includes helpful information on:

• The biology and life cycle of earwigs
• The benefits of earwigs in commercial orchards
• Monitoring for earwigs
• Enhancing earwig populations in orchards
• Protecting earwigs from plant protection products

This information was last updated in 2018