Breeding Hybrid Maize Lines for Endogenous Flavonoid Expression to Improve Fall Armyworm Resistance

Fall armyworm (FAW) is an invasive pest causing significant crop losses worldwide, especially in developing countries. Maize expressing flavonoids for endogenous pest resistance has the potential to reduce synthetic insecticide demands. We evaluated FAW larval mortality when fed leaf tissue from 12 maize entries and correlated this to tissue flavonoid content. These results will be useful in guiding future research in breeding for cultivars to express those flavonoids with the greatest efficacy against FAW.