Broomrape (Orobanche cumana Wallr.) is an important parasite in sunflower crop in Europe, some Asian countries and Australia. The parasite has spread in sunflower crop from south Russia and Ukraine. In Romania this was identified for the first time in 1940–1941 year, the most infested area being in central and south Moldavia, south Dobrogea and eastern Baragan. The negative impact of broomrape on sunflower could be found on the cultivated as well as on wild sunflower. For broomrape controlling there have been created resistant sunflower hybrids to different races of the parasite. This paper presents the results obtained by testing sunflower differential set for broomrape races A to F as well as some commercial hybrids for races more virulent than F. Using this differential set and hybrids it has been done testing in different locations from Braila county, in 2014 and 2015 years. We found that in Braila area there are present all races of the parasite which have been identified up to now in sunflower crop in Romania, having important differences between different locations. So, in some locations there is present, as the most virulent, race E, in other locations race F, in some other locations having the most virulent races, more than F. In some locations the parasite is very aggressive, having around one hundred broomrapes per one sunflower plant. We have identified the new races of the parasite in areas were one year before these have not been present.

This paper presents a three-year study concerning the effectiveness of the OSR seed treatment with the cyantraniliprole active ingredient in controlling the DBM larvae attack in autumn and four-year monitoring of the DBM flight pattern, using pheromone sticky traps. The experiment and the monitoring were conducted at the experimental field from the National Agricultural Research and Development Institute (NARDI) Fundulea in Southeast Romania. For the field assessments, each OSR sampled plant was photographed in macro mode, and then images were downloaded and magnified on the PC screen to determine the DBM larva attack. The traps were placed in the OSR crop from mid-March till December and checked twice weekly. Data from the field assessment revealed a higher pest attack on OSR plants on 11 November 2020, when the DBM larvae attack degree was 16.26% in the untreated variant and 11.24% in the variant with treated seeds. The results evidenced unusually higher activity for the diamondback moths during November 2019, 2020, and 2022; the beginning of December 2020 and 2021; and mid-December 2022. This is the first report from the Romanian scientific literature concerning higher DBM attacks at OSR plants in autumn and high moth activity during November and December.

This paper presents a five-year study concerning monitoring the cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera) flight dynamics using pheromonal traps and a study relating to the behavior of nine maize hybrids from two maturity groups to this pest attack in 2024. The monitoring and field assessments were made in south-east Romania, Călărași County, at the NARDI Fundulea. During the monitoring period, from 2020 to 2024, air temperature was higher than average in the summer months while rainfall was below average, except in June 2021. Total captured moths in the traps were 246 in 2020, 406 in 2021, 5064 in 2022, 1024 in 2023, and 4145 in 2024. In the middle of July 2022, the average captured moths per trap was 483.3; in the middle of September, it was 589.0 catches. In 2024, in the last 10 days of July, the average captured moths per trap was 311.7, in the last 10 days of August, it was 358.0, while in the middle of September, it was 362.3. In 2024, at the beginning of August, the attack incidence of corn earworm on maize hybrids ranged from 43.75 to 53.75 %, and on 13 September, it was 100 % at all hybrids. This is the first report from southeast Romania that mentioned a higher population of cotton bollworm in the late summer and beginning of autumn, and the first report that mentioned high pest attacks on maize cobs in September.