PLANT PROTECTION 1 – Pests, Diseases and Weeds

PLANT PROTECTION 1 – Pests, Diseases and Weeds
PLANT
DAMAGE
DIRECT CHEWING DAMAGE.
Plant damage is caused by both nymphs and adults feeding. Feed on a wide
range of living and dead plant and animal matter. Several species have become
cosmopolitan and are pests in some areas.
LEAVES
FLOWERS
FRUIT
SEEDLINGS
SEEDS
ROOTS
Characteristic chewing damage.
INDIRECT DAMAGE.
Presence of earwigs on harvested produce is unpleasant.
Droppings (pellets of excreta) may make plants unsightly and messy.
Also contaminate windrows at harvest time.
Potential to become a much worse problem.
Prop roots of maize and sorghum damaged so that plants lodge (fall over).
Poor crop establishment.
LIST OF SOME
SPECIES
Adults are black
and shiny with
forceps, probably
females and lay
eggs the
following spring
Valuable
predators
COMMON NAME SCIENTIFIC NAME HOST RANGE
(not exhaustive)
European earwig
Introduced pest species
Black field earwig
Native pest species
.
Common brown earwig
Native species
Giant earwig
Native species
Forficula auricularia
12-20 mm long
Nala lividipes
About 12 mm long
Pest species in Qld and NSW
Labidura truncata
About 30 mm long
Found throughout most of
Australia and may be
common in backyards
Titanolabis colossea
Up to 55 mm long
Wide range of plants
including ornamental
flowers, eg dahlias, roses and
zinnias are favored
ornamental hosts, fruit,
vegetables and field crops.
May also feed on seedlings,
roots, mosses and lichens.
European earwigs also feed
on foodstuffs, living and
dead insects.
Usually feeds on decaying
material but also eats newly
sown and germinating seeds,
seedlings, stems, roots,
ringbarks stems of crops, eg
leucaena, sunflower, summer
and winter cereals, azuki
beans, beetroot, maize
sorghum. Prefers cultivated
soil rather than zero till.
A large native earwig that
prefers to feed on caterpillars
both larger and smaller than
itself. They may also feed on
other insects including other
earwigs if hungry enough.
Attacks codling moth larvae
searching for cocooning sites.
One of the world’s largest
earwigs lives in the wet
forests of the east coast.
Giant earwigs feed on
organic matter and other
insects.
Native earwig Gonolabis michaelseni Lack the black body and
pincers of the European
earwig.
Insects and allied pests - Dermaptera (earwigs) 187