FOLIC ACID AS A NUTRIENT SUPPLEMENT WITH MULBERRY LEAF AND ITS IMPACT ON THE ECONOMIC TRAITS OF SILKWORM (BOMBYX MORI L.).

The nutritive requirement in the silkworm, Bombyx mori L. arise like any other organism for growth, reproduction and quantity of silk production. Like any other heterotropic, the silkworm should obtain all the chemical substances in required quantity from its food material. An attempt has been made in the present investigation to record the effect of mulberry leaves supplemented with folic acid at different concentrations viz., 02, 04, and 06% on the economic traits in multivoltine silkworm breeds namely MU-1 and Hosa Mysore. The result of the study revealed that, the expression for economic traits viz., mature larval weight, cocoon weight, shell weight, shell ratio, filament length, filament weight, denier, renditta, and fecundity were maximum in both the breeds at 6% concentration over control batch.