parid09

I have encountered some problems with earwigs in the past, as I have noticed some egg shaped, or "roundish" holes with no discoloration around them in the early to mid-summer last year. I discovered an earwig or two comfortably living in rolled up emerging leaves, and have had one or two new leaves completely severed because of this. At first I noticed the feces and thought they might be a small beetle, but upon closer inspection, found the culprits very deep in the rolled leaf, as far down in the pseudostem as they cold get. I just filled up the leaf with water, and waited for the little beasties to come up for air and them grabbed them. We have had a massive invasion of earwigs in the last few years, but have not noticed wholesle destruction of bananas because of them, just a few nuisance holes. They seem to prefer cannas, as those guys look like someone shot them up with a machine gun sometimes. We also have japanese beetles, which also prefer cannas, but at least up to this point, haven't noticed them on the bananas. If the leaves appear shredded, it probably is something else. What species of earwig do you have there? We have European, so maybe a different species could cause a different type of damage. Good luck!!