Vol. 11, Issue 10 (2022)

Author(s):
Jasmeena Qadir, RK Gupta, Kamlesh Bali, Magdeshwar Sharma and SK Gupta

Abstract:
The nutrition plays a crucial role in determining the good quality cocoon crop. An ingenious strategy involves the supplementation of nutrient enriched leaves to silkworm to improve the cocoon crop production. In the present investigation, the silkworm double hybrid FC1 × FC2 [(CSR6 × CSR26) × (CSR2 × CSR27)] was reared on fortified mulberry leaves with Sericin. Different instars viz., 3^rd instar, 4^th instar and 5^th in star was fed with Sericin fortified mulberry leaves separately. A significant increase in good cocoon percentage (98.33 %) and no stained cocoon, negligible flimsy (0.66 %) and mountage-pressed cocoon (0.66 %), and least total defective cocoon (1.33 %) was found when 5th instar larvae were fed with Sericin fortified mulberry leaves in comparison to 3^rd and 4^th instar. This investigation revealed that not only protein supplementation during different larval stages but high rearing efficiency, silkworm breed, maintenance of hygiene during rearing, bed cleaning, mulberry leaf quality, and type of mountage used during spinning and environmental conditions maintained during rearing and spinning plays a major role in the successful cocoon crop production.