Appearance of Fall Armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda as A New Invasive Insect Pest on Maize Plants in the Nile Delta, Egypt

Abstract

Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctudiae) is an insect pest that attacks many crops around the world and causing large reductions in the crop yield, including Graminaceous crops, especially maize. This pest introduced Egypt from Sudan, was recorded for the first time in Egypt in 2019 at Aswan Governorate on corn plants, and recently recorded in Assiut Governorate in 2021. In this study, the presence of S. frugiperda was detected in the Nile Delta of the northern part of Egypt, since it was transferred from the Upper Egypt governorates. Identification was made by observing the symptoms of infection on the investigated corn plants and the morphological characteristics of insect stages, such as holes on leaves and stems with larval feces, and presence of a white Y-shape on the head and 4 crescent-shaped black spots on all abdominal segments, except for the eighth segment, where they are square shaped. Further, the pupa has a pair of straight thorns at the end, while the adult insect has a row of small scales near the apical margin of the wing and the color of the wing changes from grayish brown to rusty brown. This study proves the presence S. frugiperda in northern part of Egypt, and because this pest has been detected, identified and its dispersal and crop destruction has been confirmed in many governorates of Egypt, it is necessary to update the geographical maps of its local distribution, to apply the recommended control approaches as a way to minimize its impacts on the agricultural crops. Further studies on its biology, host range, and food preference have to be taken in account.

First report of Fall Armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E.Smith), an invasive pest on maize and sorghum in Haryana, India

“…Male forewings were brown and grey scaled with a white triangular patch at the apical and a circular spot in the mid of the wing. Both males and females have silvery white hind wings with a narrow dark margin (Rashed et al, 2022;Sharanbasappa et al, 2018b). The findings on damage and morphological characterization validate the species as S. frugiperda and this is the first confirmed report of this invasive species fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E.…”

Biology, Host Selection Behavior and Growth Indices of Invasive Fall Armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) on Two Host Plants under Laboratory Conditions

“…It first appeared in Africa in January 2016 in Nigeria (Goergen et al, 2016). It was recorded in sub-Saharan Africa, (Abrahams et al, 2017) and in 2017, was also reported for the first time In Senegal by (Brévault et al, 2018) then by the Agricultural Pesticide Committee (APC) of the Ministry of Agriculture in Egypt where the first case was found in a maize field in a village in Kom Ombo city (Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt) in 2019 then the northern part of Egypt (Rashed et al, 2022). This pest threatens the food security of more than 300 million people in Africa and may cause significant economic losses (FAO, 2018), as its large destructive impact could push 300 million people into hunger in Africa.…”

Interaction Effects of Sowing Date, Irrigation Levels, Chitosan, and Potassium Silicate On Yield and Water Use Efficiency for Maize Grown Under Arid Climate

“…Furthermore, by sowing maize during the fall season, as humidity increased, more insects and diseases arose, particularly fall armyworm insect. Where maize is the preferred host for fall armyworm insect in the countries (Rashed et al 2022). It can decrease annual maize yield from 21% to 53% without control methods (Huang et al 2020).…”