Abstract
The fall armyworm,
, is a long-distance migratory pest, which invaded the African continent in 2016, causing enormous losses to agricultural crops, especially maize. Synthetic insecticides are primarily used for managing
, but they leave residues on human food and animal feed and also cause environmental hazards. We evaluated the crude ethanolic extract of
fruits for contact toxicity on
larvae and determined the lethal concentration (LC
) of the extract. Additionally, we conducted an electrophysiological (EAG) experiment to determine the responses of adult
males and females to
and determined whether the extract influenced mating, oviposition, and repellence to the adult female. We found that
extract caused significantly higher mortality to
larvae than an ethanol control. Electrophysiologically, we observed significantly higher responses to the extract than the control, with some variations in response between the sexes. A wind tunnel experiment revealed that females moved more towards the control than towards the extract. Taken together, our results confirm that
extract is effective against
larvae and adults. Future research should explore the responses of
to
extract on a field scale.