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Abstract
Evaluation of sweep, vacuum, and pitfall trap samples revealed that the incidence and abundance of certain arthropods were influenced by the turfgrass genotype, height, density, and thatch thickness in the sod fields. Pitfall traps captured most of the arthropods where 89% and 96% of all the predatory arthropods and parasitic Hymenoptera were trapped in the pitfall. The abundance of seed bugs and spittlebugs significantly increased with an increase in the grass height. The numbers of predatory arthropods did not vary with changes in thatch thickness, except ants. Curculionidae and Lepidoptera were significantly more abundant in the denser grasses. When the survival of Spodoptera frugiperda (Order: Family) was assessed on bermudagrass treated with varied ratios of N: K, the survival was significantly lower in 0:1, 1:2, 1:0, and 0:0 than in 2:1 and 1:1 treatment in 2018, whereas in 2019, it was lower in 0:0 than in the rest of the treatments at 10 d and 24 d post-introduction. The development of S. frugiperda larvae was significantly greater on 2:1 treatment as compared to 1:1 in both years. When resistance against S. frugiperda using newly developed resistance index on 14 bermudagrass lines, positive control, ‘Zeon’ zoysiagrass was most resistant treatment, and the performance of ‘13-T-1032’, ‘T-822’, ‘11-T-510’, ‘11-T-56’, ‘09-T-31’ and ‘11-T-483’ lines were comparable to ‘TifTuf’ bermudagrass, suggesting antibiosis as the underlying resistance mechanism.