Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Official announcement about Corn Fall Armyworm (FAW)  (Spodoptera Frugiperda) has appeared in Vietnam.

Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Letter No. 2827  BNN-BVTV dated April 24, 2019 Official announcement about Corn Fall Armyworm (FAW)  (Spodoptera Frugiperda) has appeared in Vietnam and directing on the prevention of this Invasive pest.

Implementing the direction of MARD, PPD has organized 01 TOT on Sustainable Management of FAW (on April 23-25, 2019) for the staff of Crop production and Plant protection Sub Department of 25 Northern provinces, and will conduct 2 more TOTs for the south (1 TOT), and Central region (01 TOT)

The TOT was covered those topics as follow:

> Introduction of Biology, Ecology; Key characteristics; Invasion history; Damage potential; Potential Natural enemies: Insect-killing fungi, viruses, bacteria; experience application of IPM and biological control for the FAW in Latin America and Africa.

> Participants have been discussing and working on IPM and biological control strategies for the FAW in Vietnam including Non-chemical IPM solutions: Systems diversification, Biological control (Parasitoids and predators, Baculoviruses, Insect-killing fungi and bacteria), Varietal resistance/tolerant, Cultural & manual control; Potential of mass rearing of native or imported parasitoids.

> Practice in the field about identification of FAW, observe the predators, larvae infected by fungus, virus, and collection of different  FAW stages to know natural parasitism.

However there was no time for TOT participants to prepare for the FFS curricular and farmer’s experiments.

> At the end, TOT participants have developed a province’s action plan on sustainable management of FAW.

Following is some pictures of TOT in Hung Yen (23-25/April 2019):