Fall armyworm's first sighting in NSW prompts warning to growers to check summer crops
/The potentially threatening insect known as the fall armyworm has been discovered in New South Wales for the first time.
Key points:
- Fall armyworm is known to feed on up to 350 plant species, including maize, sorghum and rice
- The insect has been on Australian shores since January, 2020
FAW has decimated food and plant crops all across the world, causing major economic damage
Growers in northern NSW are being encouraged to check their summer crops for fall armyworm (FAW) as planting gets underway, after a single male moth was found near a sorghum crop between Moree and Boggabilla, near the Queensland border.
The insects have decimated crops across the world before being detected in Australia for the first time at the start of the year.
Until now, the southern most sighting in the eastern states was at Bundaberg in May.
Fall armyworms have also been found near Longreach, as well as in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
The Queensland sightings prompted an increase in surveillance along the NSW–QLD border, where the FAW moth was found on Monday.
The NSW Department of Primary Industries said the insect was a serious threat to Australia's grain, rice, cotton, horticultural and sugar industries.
They are known to feed on up to 350 plant species, particularly maize, cotton, sorghum, wheat, rice and sugarcane.
Growers told to check for larvae
The NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has been monitoring the northern regions for many months, and said the first find was cause to be alert, but not alarmed.
"Fall armyworm is a new test to NSW. We anticipated we may see it this summer because we've had established populations in Queensland," NSW DPI grains biosecurity officer Bill Gordon said.
"We've been monitoring for it since last year on the North Coast and have established a wide network of pheromone traps which attract the adult males to give us an idea of when it may arrive in NSW.
"At this stage we've only detected one, which is a good thing."
About 45 traps are in place across northern NSW, with the find of an adult fall armyworm this week prompting a warning to growers.
"With that being an adult, the next steps would be to get people to start checking some crops to see if we have any larvae present in those," Mr Gordon said.
"It's more likely that people will see early damage either on sorghum or maize plants and that damage may initially look like windowing where they might eat the epidermis of the leaf.
"We know they have caused reasonably significant damage in those corn crops up in central and north Queensland, but this particular pest really is a tropical pest and it's well adapted to those warmer climates, it'll grow faster and can become established there."
However, he said, in majority of the grain-growing regions of New South Wales, it would be a migratory or an occasional pest more likely to come in during the warmer months.
"Then it will take some time to build up some populations to get to significant or damaging levels," Mr Gordon said.
"We're still waiting to see what extent in our areas and our regions the crops may be affected.
"But certainly the maize and sorghum in the north, and if it were to make it further south things like rice, we'd be encouraging people to look very closely at."