One of the project\u2019s early findings was that while detecting moths is relatively easy, predicting crop damage is far more difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also learned that effective surveillance depends on growers and advisers regularly inspecting crops, which remains one of the biggest practical challenges,\u201d Mills said.<\/p>\n
The research found fall armyworm management should be integrated into existing pest management programmes, but action needs to be taken earlier than for other maize pests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen larvae are detected early, management options are generally effective and straightforward,\u201d Mills said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs larvae grow and move deeper into the plant, control becomes more difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is why management decisions must be based primarily on crop scouting rather than trap captures alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mills said that while the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures project had nearly finished, there was still plenty of work on fall armyworm at research agencies, including the Bioeconomy Science Institute.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still don\u2019t fully understand how well fall armyworm overwinters in New Zealand or what drives seasonal population changes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cImproving our ability to forecast outbreaks remains a key priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
First detected in New Zealand in 2022, fall armyworm is one of the world’s most significant maize pests.<\/p>\n
Mills said the frequency and origin of new incursions remained an important question.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout frequent population genetic studies, we can\u2019t determine what proportion of the FAW population is the result of over-winter survival versus new arrivals from Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has important implications for both biosecurity and insecticide resistance management.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bioeconomy Science Institute entomologist Scott Hardwick said monitoring showed fall armyworm produced three to four generations a year in the Far North and warmer regions such as Gisborne and the East Coast compared with one to two generations in southern regions.<\/p>\n
Far North entomologist Jenny Dymock has monitored six fall armyworm bucket pheromone traps and adjacent maize crops near Kait\u0101ia for the past four years.<\/p>\n
She advised maize silage and grain growers in the region to sow crops in November, not December, to help avoid larval feeding damage to seedlings and cobs from second-generation fall armyworm larvae.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mills leads a three-year MPI Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures project, supported by Vegetables NZ, which has six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,278039,9442,77,3592,1888,3011,23361,305,78,40484,17385,661,9554,5969,111,43,139,69,90,19028,2214,8229,68384,6923,1530,80],"class_list":["post-564952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-armyworm","tag-better","tag-detected","tag-fall","tag-first","tag-four","tag-growers","tag-have","tag-in","tag-learned","tag-maize","tag-major","tag-manage","tag-much","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-pest","tag-researchers","tag-they","tag-understanding","tag-what","tag-years","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}