Well those pesky Fall Armyworms or FAW are at it again. By that I mean after the huge amount of damage, yield loss and many costly Insecticide applications last season, they are back again already for this summer of 2024/25.
My trip to the Callide Dawson and North Burnett last week certainly ascertained that farmers and agronomists had already committed to spray events on small or seedling maize plants. Perhaps there were some who had sprayed small grain sorghum plants as well I suspect.
As you can see from my own photos from that first season of Fall Armyworm incursion into Queensland in 2021, these damn larvae or grubs of the FAW life cycle can actually kill smaller maize or grain sorghum plants. This is not the best when we all try so hard to achieve our regular plants per square metre with even distribution in that square metre.
There has been plenty of talk about FAW and spray thresholds and timing over the last few years and I suspect it maybe another few years before we really nail it down for this spray timing in our grass crops like Maize, Grain Sorghum, various Millets and even our barley and wheat crops at times.
The pressure we are applying to increasing insecticide resistance issues with our best chemistry is enormous and not to be downplayed.
I still believe we need to adopt more the biological spray of Falligen and use the moth attractant in Magnet to assist our more conventional spraying patterns.
Never going to be a complete control mechanism these two aren't, however are my best thoughts at this stage, as is we need to take the resistance pressure of our other critical incrop spray patterns for Helicoverpa Armigera in all sorts of broadacre and even horticultural crops.
Regards
Paul McIntosh (JP Qual)
