Prophecising the migratory potential through strainal variation analysis of Fall armyworm

Fall armyworm is an obliterating pest that is rampantly devastating all the crops in a jiffy, the need to take up this study is to confirm the strain of Spodoptera frugiperda, which is very crucial as it can help to better understand the prevalent strain along with assessing the burgeoning trend of attack forehand to the crops that are at formidable invasive threat. In order to avoid ambiguity between C and R strain specimens were collected from Kurnool, Chittoor, Kadapa and Anantapuramu (Rayalaseema region) the major Maize growing belt of Andhra Pradesh and were subjected to molecular analysis. The salient findings of the present study are the genetic similarity among the collected larval populations of Fall armyworm revealed a high A-T rich composition with an average of 41.2 % of thymine (uracil) and Mt COI region studies on populations from Chittoor, Kurnool Kadapa and Ananthapuramu, Ragi in Chittoor showed 89 %, 100 %, 98 %, 98 % and 99 % similarity with C strain Fall armyworm population of France (mw665994.1) respectively which is contrary to several contemporary reports that claim population of Fall armyworm in Andhra Pradesh, India to be predominantly R Strain. As Fall armyworm belonging to C strain are a probable threat to Cotton and sugarcane crops, hence forewarning precautions needs to be taken to curtail the polyphagous pest menace.