Earwig: Guardian of Ilocos corn farms

A “knight in shining black armor” is now serving as guardian of Ilocandia’s corn fields.

Though menacingly looking because of its dark color, the earwig (scientific name : Euborellia annulata) is actually farmer-friendly, eating the larvae of pests that prey on corn plants.

Hundreds of thousands of these beneficial predators are now being produced for release in corn, farms infested with insect-pests as Asian corn borer, cutworm, corn earworm, armyworm, grasshoppers, and semi-looper.

A research report on the project was among the winners in the 2008 National Research Symposium (NRS) sponsored recently by the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR).

NRS is a yearly competition organized by DA-BAR, currently headed by Director Nicomedes P. Eleazar, that honors outstanding researchers and their scientific works. Participants are mostly researchers of DA bureaus and attached agencies and state colleges and universities.

The project “Mass Production and Utilization of Earwig (Euborellia annulata) for Corn Production in Region I” was conducted by researchers of the DA-Regional Field Unit I-Ilocos Integrated Agricultural Research Center (RFU I-ILIARC), led by Marivic Begonia.

The earwig technology project is in support of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA)-Corn Program in Region 1. It aims to increase the income of Ilocos corn farmers through introduction of low-cost and environment-friendly technology.

In the project, hundreds of thousands of earwigs were mass-produced and distributed to corn farmers for use as biological control agents (BCA) in neutralizing insect-pests attacking their corn plants.

As part of the project’s technology dissemination component, 11 training courses were conducted for 283 farmer-participants.

Results of the study, as exemplified by IPM plots in Barangay Calzado, Mabini, Pangasinan, showed that corn farms applied with earwigs had minimal incidence of insect-pests.

“Incidence of insect-pests was suppressed by the released earwigs and the presence of natural enemies in the field,” the DA researchers reported.

Utilization of earwigs also reduced the cost of insecticide application by 94 percent, they added. — Rudy A. Fernandez