Crop Pests in the Philippines: Name Them by the Damage They Leave

In the Philippines, insects still make up the biggest group. Rice has more than 100 insect pests across the globe, yet only about 20 cause serious losses. Together, pests and diseases take an average of 37 percent of the rice crop every year. So name the pest before you buy anything.

The seven kinds of crop pests

Each kind of crop pest leaves its own mark and needs its own answer. So sort what you find first.

• Chewing insects. Caterpillars, beetles and grasshoppers bite off plant tissue and leave holes, ragged edges and droppings. Think of the fall armyworm, the diamondback moth and the coconut leaf beetle.
• Sucking insects. Planthoppers, aphids, whiteflies, mealybugs, scale insects and bugs drink sap, so leaves yellow, curl or blacken with sooty mold. Some also carry viruses. The brown planthopper spreads grassy stunt, and the green leafhopper spreads tungro.
• Borers. These larvae feed inside stems, fruit or corms. Look for entry holes, droppings like sawdust and dead shoot tips, as with the rice stem borer and the banana weevil.
• Mites. Mites are not insects. They have eight legs, like spiders, and leave fine pale dots and webbing, mostly in hot, dusty weather. See hanip, mites and aphids.
• Snails. The golden apple snail, or kuhol, came from South America in the 1980s. It cuts young rice at the base until the plants reach 30 to 40 days.
• Rats. Rats take 5 to 10 percent of rice yield in Asia each year. See rice field rats.
• Birds. Only five bird species in the Philippines eat rice, among them the munias and the tree sparrow that farmers call maya. See rice birds.

Read the damage: a key to crop pests

You often see the damage before the pest. Match it with this table, then open the pest's page to confirm. Turn the leaves over too, because many pests hide underneath.

Some damage is not a pest at all. Sheath blight, other crop diseases and a lack of nutrients can look like insect work. If you are not sure, take a photo and ask Anee, the smart farm technician in anee.io. She answers in Tagalog or English, and she reads your lot's growth stage first.

The worst crop pests by crop

Rice

Rice has the longest list. Stem borers, the brown planthopper, the rice black bug and the rice bug lead it. The rice bug alone can cut yield by as much as 30 percent. Our rice insects guide covers each pest by crop stage.

Corn

The Asian corn borer is the most destructive corn pest in the Philippines. Then the fall armyworm arrived. It was first reported in Piat, Cagayan in June 2019 and had reached 15 regions by October. Also watch for the cutworm on seedlings.

Vegetables

The diamondback moth is a very destructive pest of cabbage. The eggplant fruit and shoot borer is the worst insect of eggplant. Fruit flies such as the melon fly attack ampalaya, while thrips and leafminers hit many vegetables in the Philippines.

Coconut

Cocolisap, the coconut scale insect, was first found in Batangas in 2009. It yellows the fronds and thins the nut meat. A palm can die in six months or less. The rhinoceros beetle bores into the crown and cuts V shapes in the fronds. Its wounds invite the red palm weevil. Finally, the coconut leaf beetle eats young, unopened fronds. It hit more than three million trees from 2007 to 2011.

Banana

Banana weevil grubs tunnel through the corm, so plants weaken, blow over and bear small bunches. The banana aphid carries bunchy top. No banana virus in the Philippines does more harm than bunchy top, and nothing cures it.

Mango

The cecid fly, or kurikong, lays its eggs on young leaves and fruit and leaves brown, scabby spots. It can ruin up to 80 percent of the fruit. In Palawan, the mango pulp weevil infests the fruit itself. See the mango leafhopper and oriental fruit fly pages too.

Friends in the field

Many insects in your field eat crop pests for free.

• Spiders hunt hoppers at the base of rice hills, and they are among the natural enemies of the brown planthopper.
• Wasps. Tiny wasps lay their eggs inside pest eggs or caterpillars. In Benguet, the Diadegma wasp let cabbage farmers cut their sprays sharply.
• Ladybird beetles, or lady beetles, eat aphids, and they are among the enemies of the rice black bug.
• Earwigs, ants and ducks. Earwigs prey on the Asian corn borer, red ants eat snail eggs, and ducks eat young snails.

Early sprays kill these friends first. So use no insecticide on rice in the first 40 days after planting. A shorter rule gives the first 30 days after transplanting or 40 days after sowing. Our guide to integrated pest management shows how to work with them.

When a spray is the answer, and when it is not

A spray is a tool for a named pest at a damaging number. Consider one only when all of these are true.

• You have named the pest, not just the damage.
• Your count passes its threshold. For example, act on the rice bug at more than 10 bugs in 20 hills.
• Natural enemies do not outnumber the pest. If they do, do not spray for planthoppers.
• A registered product lists that pest on that crop.

Skip the spray when the rice is young, the pest has gone or the cause is a disease. Rats, snails and birds need other tools too. These include community rat campaigns, handpicking snails, low water and bird scarers. For the rhinoceros beetle, a Pacific pest guide calls insecticides uneconomical and says to clear breeding sites.

Let anee.io keep watch for crop pests

In anee.io, the cropping calendar can date a weekly scouting task from each lot's own day zero. Then the growth stages view shows what to watch for on any date you pick.

Questions about crop pests