Invasive pest fall armyworm discovered in NSW as it marches south

A highly invasive insect pest — considered a serious threat to a range of agricultural industries — has been confirmed in NSW for the first time, revealing its spread south across eastern Australia is continuing.

Surveillance efforts to prevent the spread of fall armyworm have ramped up following its detection in NSW.

AN INVASIVE pest native to the Americas that was first detected in Australia in northern Queensland in January is making its way south.

Fall armyworm’s incursion into NSW for the first time was confirmed last week, after scientists positively identified a single male armyworm moth trapped near a sorghum crop. The moth was found in the pheromone trap in late September in Moree, in northwest NSW, during routine pest surveillance.

The insect pest is considered a serious threat to a range of agricultural industries including grain, rice, cotton, vegetables, fruit and sugarcane. It was first detected in North Queensland in January and then Katherine, Northern Territory, and Kununarra, Western Australia, in March with further detections in April at Broome and Carnarvon, WA.

It’s incursion into Australia was expected given the moth has spread rapidly across Asia and Africa over the past three years and its ability to feed on more than 350 plant species. While its crops of choice are maize, cotton, rice, sorghum, sugarcane and wheat, it has also been found on fruit and vegetables.

Plant Health Australia’s national manager of preparedness, Stuart Kearns, said the pest was bound to make its way to Victoria, but Victorian farmers were somewhat protected by the state’s cooler weather that would prohibit the moth from completing a generational cycle.

“They will come down, not every year, but they will be blown down and could be seen from mid-October. But they’re not going to survive through May to August,” Mr Kearns said.

The moth is native to subtropical areas of the Americas and is unable to survive frosts or temperatures below 12C.

While in Australia the pest has been found to prefer sweet crops like maize and sorghum. It has also been detected on rockmelons in the Ord River region of WA.

Mr Kearns said there was no evidence from overseas that fall armyworm affects fruit and vegetable yields when it was effectively managed using integrated pest management practices and insecticides, when necessary.

Australia’s national science agency CSIRO is leading a research project to understand and manage fall armyworm to ensure Australian farmers know how to effectively manage the pest. Australian biosecurity originations have deemed it unfeasible to eradicate, leading to the adoption of a strategy designed to reduce its impact.

The CSIRO research will test the moth’s resistance to commonly used insecticides and will run until mid-2021.

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