Fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda Smith) a new quarantine pest in Romania

 Emil Georgescu¹, Mirela Cean,²  Iulia Rădulescu²,  Iuliana Dobrin², Lidia Cană¹

¹NARDI Fundulea
²Autoritatea Națională Fitosanitară

Keywords: fall armyworm, first detection, Romania.

Abstract: Fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda Smith) is a major agricultural pest in tropical and subtropical areas, originating from the American continent. In the last years this pest has spread in the African continent, India, and many countries from East Asia. In Europe, Spodoptera frugiperda is regulated as a quarantine pest for the European Union according to Commission implementing regulation (EU) 2019/2072 and is nominated as a priority pest in the Commission delegated regulation (EU) 2019/1702. In 2021 this pest was reported for the first time, in the Canary Islands (Spain). More recent reports confirm the presence of the pest in some countries from southern Europe, such as Portugal (Madeira), Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey. This pest has a high migration capacity, spreading in new territories in a short period. However, it seems fall armyworms can't overwinter in temperate climates, but can migrate during the summer from the southern regions. In 2023, during a survey carried out in Fundulea, Călărași County by the National Agricultural Research and Development Institute, for different pests of corn, including Spodoptera frugiperda in a trap were detected suspicious adults of fall armyworm. For the survey, it was used pheromone traps, VRAL+ type, from the Csalomon® (Hungary) which was deployed in a maize field from the Southeast of the country. The observations started at the end of May and finished at the end of November. The morphological analyses of the adults were done at the National Phytosanitary Laboratory in Romania and the confirmation of the results was performed by the European Union Reference Laboratory, through ANSES (France) from the morphological point of view and AGES (Austria) for molecular analyses. Both types of analyses confirmed the presence of the fall armyworm for the first time in Romania. The larvae or eggs weren’t detected during the observation of the maize field in the summer or the beginning of autumn.
A possible explanation for the late trapping of the pest in the middle of autumn is the migration of adults from southern European countries where Spodoptera frugiperda was previously detected. Further studies are necessary to clarify the pathways of introduction.