Do I need to worry about earwigs/pincher bugs in my soil? I have found a ton of them in my soil under the mulch and I'm wondering if I needed to worry about them. I read they eat evetything , including good bugs Should I introduce something into my garden to keep their numbers down? Or just let them be
According to this article they are mostly omnivorous, but like to eat smaller soft-bodied insects. They focus on decaying matter, but will burrow into and eat plant(s) depending on the cultivar and age/size(they prefer younger growth). Look for them on plant leaves and flowers at night, if you see them eating your plant(look for caterpillar-like damage) or worry that they are affecting roots(mass burrowing and orgies) they gotta go. These earwigs could be out competing a more beneficial or problematic biology(make sure you don't have root aphids too). Some of the gentlemen around here might have a secret(or not-so-secret) organic solution for these guys, but I'm not aware of it. Most people remove the earwigs desired environement(mulch) from the soil beds and then trap them by presenting a more viable environment nearby where pest genocide can occur without affecting plants. I don't know if a mulch reset is viable in no-till gardening though, but a mulch reset could be less harmful than the pest in the long term depending on severity and success of other IPM strategies. Earwigs Management Guidelines--UC IPM Good luck!
@Juan Orfa Very good Info, and this is what I was thinking. I don't think they are eating my plants but I can't speak for the roots... also I don't want them to over take my beneficial bugs, I may have to do some more research and see how to keep their numbers down... I believe a good ecosystem should have prey and predators but when the predators start to take over they need to be delt with
Just looked up earwig traps and they are pretty simple to make They are basically a container buried in the ground up to the lip Fill it with oil and soy sauce And boom... ear wig trap
Sounds like you've got a plan! Make sure you make your own as you've said. DO NOT buy one, they aren't very affective and could contain a number of things you don't want in your soil or garden. It would be awesome if you could update us if/when the method you're pursuing works!