Fall armyworm ( Spodoptera frugiperda) (FAW) is an important invasive pest of maize. The young FAW larva disrupts the photosynthetic system by feeding on the leaves. The older caterpillar interferes with pollination and fertilization processes, destroying the tassel and silks, or it bores into the maize cob, reducing harvest quality and predisposing the cob to secondary infections. The infested plant responds by channeling or converting the primary metabolites into secondary metabolites for plant defense, further reducing crop yield. The devastating feeding effect on maize becomes even more severe when maize plants are exposed to prolonged drought, during which the production of secondary metabolites is optimum. These secondary metabolites are food for herbivorous insects like the fall armyworm. Naturally, plants possess several adaptive features which enable them to cope and survive herbivorous insect attacks without compensating yield for plant defense. Such features include: thickening of the leaf cuticle of the epidermal cell walls, production of certain allelochemicals, defense proteins and the toxic chemical compound, favone glycoside (silk maysin). This review attempts to critically appraise the physiological implications of fall armyworm damage on developmental processes and maize yield. Understanding the mechanisms of various adaptive traits that confer resistance to maize against herbivorous insect damage would assist greatly in crop improvement processes.

The objective of this study is to recover sludge from the Dar Gueddari sewage treatment plant and use it in the cultivation of corn in the open field on clay soil. To do this, four doses were tested against two types of controls: a control without addition of sludge and another with the addition of nitrogen-based fertilisers (200 kg N, 100 kg P and 100 kg K). The short-term effects indicated that the application of the sludge had a beneficial effect on the fertilising qualities of the soil and therefore on the crop yield. The monitoring of the agronomic parameters of the maize plant showed that the growths and the yields varied according to doses of the sludge. In grain yield, the difference between plot E4 and E0 was around 3.3 Mg∙ha ^–1. In addition, the plots treated with large sludge doses experienced improvements in total nitrogen and organic matter. During the second season, the results obtained showed decrease in nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus). It emerged from the C:N ratio which was 8. This indicated a good mineralisation of the organic matter (OM) which was average of 2.48 ±0.04% and 2.5 ±0.01%, respectively in the E4 and E5 treatments. In addition, the amounts of N, P and Ca in dry matter (DM) increased with increasing the dose of sludge. During the 2017 season, the highest values were detected in plot E5 with averages of 1.6% in N and 0.53% in P.