Biology of Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) On Several Types of Plant Feed: Potency as a Pest on Various Plants

Spodoptera frugiperda is a new invasive and highly polyphagous pest that attacks corn in Indonesia. The availability of abundant plant species allows pests to switch to other host plants to maintain their population. This research aims to examine the development, reproduction, nutritional indices, and life table of S. frugiperda in several plant species. The plants tested were corn, rice, broccoli, oil palm, and baby corn as controls. Ten individual insects were used and repeated five times for each plant species. The test results show that different types of plant feed affect the development time, imago life span, fecundity, and fertility of S. frugiperda. The types of plant feed, that were baby corn fruit and broccoli had higher net reproduction value (R0), intrinsic growth rate (r), gross reproduction rate (GRR), shorter mean generation period (T), and population doubling time (DT) than in corn and rice leaves. On oil palm leaf feed no population parameters can be determined because no larvae developed into adults and had the lowest nutritional indices parameters, so that could not be exploited as a host plant. Also, the nutritional indices of several feed plant species tested provided information that broccoli could be a suitable host when there was no corn in the field.