Efficacy of Insecticides Against Spodoptera frugiperda (Smith, 1797)

Abstract

The Brazil’s economy is supported by agribusiness, however, the continuous cycle of food production and favorable climate contributes to the incidence of pest insects all year round. The fall armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda (Smith, 1797) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is considered the main insect in the corn crop, due to voracity of the caterpillars and occurrence throughout the crop cycle. Therefore, the chemical control has been demanded considerably, causing emergence of populations resistant to the different products, as well as implications in the environment. Thus, studies are needed to evaluate the efficiency of chemical insecticide control according to the susceptibility and the stages of biological development of the pest. The objective of this work was to evaluate the performance of isolated and combined insecticides for the control of S. frugiperda caterpillars under laboratory conditions. In the residual and direct contact bioassays, 8 treatments with 5 replications were used in a completely randomized design, performed with 2nd and 5th instar. The results showed that by residual contact after 72 hours, clofenapir + zeta-cypermethrin treatment had 100% efficacy in the mortality of both instars. When applied via direct contact 72 hours later, the combined treatments showed an efficiency above 80%. However, for an integrated pest management program, where it was recommended the association of different control tactics, the management of insecticides with clofenapir + zeta-cypermethrin was effective with 100% control efficiency in both instars.

Toxic Bait as an Alternative Tool in the Management of Spodoptera frugiperda in Second Corn Crops

“…The presence of visible damage in areas containing Bt crops and constant reports of insect resistance to Cry1F in Brazil (Farias et al, 2014) indicate that the populations of FAW in Brazil are resistant, even to those plantations containing pyramid resistance genes (Santos-Amaya et al, 2015;Barcelos & Angelini, 2018). On the other hand, insecticides have often shown control failures due to problems in application technology, the habit of these pests that make control difficult and, in some cases, the increase in the frequency of resistant individuals as a result of frequent spraying of insecticides with the same mode of action (Bernardi & Omoto, 2018;Fernandes et al, 2019).…”

Effectiveness of Insecticides to Control Small and Large Larvae of Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner, 1805) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

“…However, the control efficiency may change due to the different developmental stages of the pest in the crop, and smaller sized caterpillars are generally more susceptible to insecticides (Gusmão et al, 2000;Basavanneppa & Balikai, 2014;Abbas et al, 2015;Kuss et al, 2016). In field spraying, caterpillars receive more product on the integument, penetrating into the cuticle, trachea, or even pores, reaching the nervous system, and causing the death of the insect (Viana & Costa, 1998;Fernandes et al, 2018). This work evaluated the control efficiency on both, small (< 1.5 cm) and (> 1.5 cm) caterpillars, determining that the overall the size of the caterpillar had no influence on their susceptibility to the tested products.…”

Susceptibility of Spodoptera frugiperda and Chrysodeixis includens (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) to infections caused by Metarhizium rileyi

“…KEYWORDS: Biopesticide, soybean looper, fall armyworm, green muscardine, entomopathogenic fungus. Tomquelski 2015, Sorgatto et al 2015, Fernandes et al 2019. Studies around the world have been carried out to develop alternatives for managing pests in different crops, evidencing the need to advance in the adoption of control methods other than chemical, such as the use of biopesticides based on entomopathogenic fungi (Lacey et al 2015).…”