Farai Mabeza, Senior Staff Writer 
THE International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has announced that it has successfully developed three fall armyworm-tolerant elite maize hybrids for eastern and southern Africa.
The fall armyworm, which originated in the Americas, emerged as a serious threat to maize production in Africa in 2016 before spreading to Asia in 2018.
“Host plant resistance is an important component of integrated pest management. By leveraging tropical insect-resistant maize germplasm developed in Mexico, coupled with elite stress-resilient maize germplasm developed in sub-Saharan Africa, CIMMYT worked intensively over the past three years to identify and validate sources of native genetic resistance to fall armyworm in Africa,” CIMMYT said in a statement.
“Based on the results of on-station screenhouse trials for fall armyworm tolerance (under artificial infestation) conducted at Kiboko (Kenya) during 2017-2019, CIMMYT researchers evaluated in 2020 a set of eight test hybrids (four early-maturing and four intermediate-maturing) against four widely used commercial hybrids (two early- and two intermediate-maturing) as checks”.
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