The identification and conservation of naturally occurring enemies of crop pests is an important means of improving biological control in cropping systems. One particularly important potential mechanism whereby birds might stabilize and improve pest control is consumption of individual prey that escape mortality from other agents of biological control. We tested the hypothesis that birds prefer...

A novel vegetative insecticidal gene, vip3A(a), whose gene product shows activity against lepidopteran insect larvae including black cutworm (Agrotis ipsilon), fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), beet armyworm (Spodoptera exigua), tobacco budworm (Heliothis virescens), and corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea) has been isolated from Bacillus thuringiensis strain AB88. VIP3-insecticidal gene homolog...

Transgenic crop "pyramids" producing two or more Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins active against the same pest are used to delay evolution of resistance in insect pest populations. Laboratory and greenhouse experiments were performed with fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, to characterize resistance to Bt maize producing Cry1A.105 and Cry2Ab and test some assumptions of the "pyramid" resis...

Fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) is an important pest for corn and rice in Cuba. Here, we describe the obtainment of transgenic tobacco plants expressing the cowpea trypsin inhibitor (cpti) gene as a model to explore the efficiency of this protein for fall armyworm control. Tobacco plants were transformed with Agrobacterium tumefaciens containing a plasmid conferring kanamycin resistance a...

Protein patterns of callus from corn (Zea mays L.) inbreds that are either resistant or susceptible to fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda [J.E. Smith]) were analyzed by two-dimensional electrophoresis. Fall armyworm larvae reared on callus initiated from resistant inbreds were significantly smaller than those reared on callus of susceptible inbreds. A 33-kD protein found in callus from the re...

J. Econ.Entomol. 79: 1658-1661 (1986) ABSTRACT Processingsweet corn harvested from commercial fields in western New York was graded for insect injury and presence of larvae of European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalts (Hubner); fall armyworm, Spodoptera !rugiperda (]. E. Smith); and corn earworm, Heliothts zea (Boddie), during 1982 and 1983. In both years, boring injury caused by O. nubilalts was...

In plants, ethylene and jasmonate control the defense responses to multiple stressors, including insect predation. Among the defense proteins known to be regulated by ethylene is maize insect resistance 1-cysteine protease (Mir1-CP). This protein is constitutively expressed in the insect-resistant maize (Zea mays) genotype Mp708; however, its abundance significantly increases during fall armywo...

The feasibility of synthetic sex pheromone as a communication disruption agent for the control of the beet armyworm, Spodoptera exigua (Hübner), was examined by dispensing a 7:3 mixture of (Z,E)-9, 12-tetradecadienyl acetate and (Z)-9-tetradecen-1-o1. When this mixture was dispensed into a 155 ha field, the attraction of male moths to sex pheromone traps was completely inhibited, while the dens...

Several restriction sites in the cytochrome oxidase I gene of fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith), were identiÞed by sequence analysis as potentially being speciÞc to one of the two host strains. Strain speciÞcity was demonstrated for populations in Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, and North Carolina, with an AciI and SacI site speciÞc to the rice (Oryza spp.)-strain and a Bs...

The effect of aging on a commercial pheromone-based lure for attractiveness to male adult beet armyworms, Spodoptera exigua (Hübner), was assessed in terms of trapping efficiency and volatile emissions of two key components: (Z,E)-9,12-tetradecadienyl acetate and (Z)-9-tetradecen-1-ol. In field assays conducted in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas, for 9 wk (June-August 2000) and for 8 wk (Mar...