Assessing New Scouting Approaches for Field Sampling of Spodoptera frugiperda and Its Parasitoids

The efficient control of fall armyworm (FAW) Spodoptera frugiperda depends on timely and reliable detection of its egg masses and early larval stages. A range of tools exist for field scouting of FAW among which the newly developed Farmer Interface App (FIA). The current experiments were conducted under the hypothesis that scouting pattern relevance determine the significance of FAW and parasitoids oviposition data collected. Seven scouting patterns were compared during intensive sampling of FAW and two parasitoid species in maize plots. The FIA - being the simplest model among them, and the one which can be easily implemented by low-literacy farmers – gave precision levels statistically comparable to those of more complex models. The pest oviposition data, the egg parasitoid Telenomus remus and the egg-larval parasitoid Chelonus sp. were modelled in this study.