Vol. 11, Issue 10 (2022)

Author(s):
Sumya Kapoor, Muzafar Ahmad Bhat and Divya Sudan

Abstract:
Since silkworms have been raised in farms for a very long time, their bodies are more sensitive and prone to infection due to their close contact with the environment. Lime was employed as a bed sanitizer @ 5 gm/sq.ft, Vijetha to disinfect beds @ 3 gm/sq. ft and lime+ash as a bed disinfectant @5gm/sq.ft. However, using the bed disinfectant from Vijeta and Lime+Ash only minimally raised the weight of the larvae. Vijeta-derived population had superior ERR to the untreated population by 91.33%. The longest larval duration was seen in the untreated control group. However, the ERR for the bed sanitizer from Lime and Lime+Ash was 88.00% and 90.67%. Vijeta's bed disinfection has greatly improved in terms of the shell weight of cocoons. Bed disinfectants Lime, Vijeta, and Lime+Ash produced cocoons with shell weights of 0.46, 0.62 and 0.34 g respectively. The pupa's weight peaked at 1.30g on day 6 in the population derived from Lime bed disinfectant larvae. The population from Vijeta's bed disinfection had the highest percentage of cocoon shells (34.97%) and shell ratio of 26.07%.