Comparative Biology of Fall Armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda on Different Host Plants under Laboratory Conditions

Author: P. Kranthi and R. Sunitha Devi

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Abstract

Fall Armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith) (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae) was recently reported for the first time in India in May, 2018 as a new invasive pest of maize. A detailed record of S. frugiperda’s host plants is essential to better understand the biology and ecology of this pest, conduct future studies, and develop Integrated Pest Management programmes. Therefore, present study were undertaken to study biology on three different natural host plants viz., maize, sorghum, sugarcane along with artificial diet as control under laboratory conditions during kharif, 2019 at Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad. During the experiment, newly hatched larvae were fed with respective host plants and artificial diet. Duration of development from larva to adult and oviposition were evaluated. The results revealed that, significant lowest larval developmental period of 12.28 ± 0.05 days was noticed on artificial diet, while it was maximum (16.82 Â

Keywords

Spodoptera frugiperda, biology, maize, sugarcane, sorghum, artificial diet.