ATTRACTION OF SPODOPTERA FRUGIPERDA MALES FROM DIFFERENT REGIONS OF ARGENTINA TOWARDS DIFFERENT FORMULATIONS OF THE FEMALE SEX PHEROMONE, IN THE LABORATORY AND IN THE FIELD

BRATOVICH C; SALUSO ADRIANA; MURUA GABRIELA; GUERENSTEIN PG

Congreso; 32nd Meeting of the International Society for Chemical Ecology and 4th Meeting of the Latin American Association for Chemical Ecology; 2016

ISCE, ALAEQ

The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), is an important pest of corn. It is known that the chemical composition of the female sex pheromone of this species varies between populations of different geographical areas. While the pheromonal composition of populations from North and Central America and Brazil is known, the pheromone composition of females from Argentina is unknown. There are different commercial versions of synthetic sex pheromone of this lepidopteran. We studied the attraction of male S. frugiperda from different geographic areas of Argentina to two commercial versions of synthetic sex pheromone, in the laboratory and in two distant locations in the field. Five geographically different argentine populations were used for laboratory tests. The commercial versions of S. frugiperda pheromone evaluated were those from: a) Great Lakes® Hercon® (GL) and b) ChemTica® (CH). A negative control was also tested. In the laboratory, tests were conducted in a wind-tunnel. The behaviors recorded were mainly: takeoff, flight halfway through the tunnel, approaching the source at a radius <10 cm, and contact. Usually at least 80% of the moths tested took off and at least 70% flew halfway through the tunnel. GL evoked approach in 5-50% of the moths tested depending on the population, whereas the % approach for CH was somewhat lower (however, an experimental, non-commercial formulation from ChemTica® performed similarly to GL in preliminary tests). In corn fields, data from Unitrap traps were collected during 3 months. The number of S. frugiperda males collected was 51 and 48 with GL 15 and 2 with CH, and 6 and 0 with control, in Tucumán and Paraná, respectively. Even when the pheromone blends tested showed attraction, the formulation should be improved.