Vol. 12, Special Issue 11 (2023)

Author(s):
Dr. Atul R Mohapatra, Dr. Dilipsinh B Sisodiya, Dr. Ghanshyam B Patil and Dr. Ramji G Parmar

Abstract:
The destructive and invasive fall armyworm (FAW) has evoked heavy damage to maize crops throughout the world and also planted its roots in almost every Indian state. Considering the importance of FAW and in order to infer the genetic characterization of Spodoptera frugiperda infesting maize, a survey was conducted and samples from 9 districts of middle Gujarat region viz., Panchmahal, Mahisagar, Dahod, Anand, Kheda, Chhotaudepur, Vadodara, Ahmedabad and Botad were collected. The characterization of fall armyworm infesting maize in nine districts of middle Gujarat viz., Panchmahal (OR144565), Mahisagar (OR145093), Dahod (OR145095), Anand (OR225961), Kheda (OR145135), Vadodara (OR145136), Chhotaudepur (OR145138), Ahmedabad (OR145322) and Botad (OR145139) based on mitochondrial COX1 gene sequences revealed the categorization under the Corn-strain of S. frugiperda. The size of consensus sequences was varied from 656 to 672 base pairs. Subsequent phylogeny analysis indicated prevalence of two divergent population of C-strain of S. frugiperda in middle Gujarat. The fall armyworm specimens collected from Chhotaudepur, Vadodara and Dahod were characterized in clade 1, whereas the specimens collected from Panchmahal, Mahisagar, Anand, Kheda, Ahmedabad and Botad were characterized in clade 2. Both the clades exhibited close similarity with geographically isolated locations indicating possible source of introduction as 2 haplotypes were prevalent in fields of maize from middle Gujarat.