Varietal influence of mulberry on silkworm, Bombyx mori L. growth and development

The present study was conducted to evaluate the best mulberry verity suitable for larval growth and economic characteristics of cocoon produced by silkworm, Bombyx mori. Five mulberry varieties namely, AR-14, TR-10, BR-2, S-1 and S-1635 were selected to feed on CSR2 x CSR4 silkworm race to find out varietal influence on silkworm growth and development. Further, four replications were maintained and 100 silkworm larvae were reared in each replication. Different larval parameters viz. larval duration, larval weight, larval length and larval width were measured at different stages of silkworm. Soon after, harvested the cocoon and same were used to find out cocoon weight, shell weight, shell percentage and other characters like pupal weight and effective rate of rearing were measured. Results showed significant differences among different mulberry varieties on larval growth and cocoon characteristics. The best performance was observed by feeding S-1635 variety in respect of larval duration (4.06 day), weight of 10 mature larvae (34.54 g), cocoon weight (1.68 g), shell weight (0.343 g) and pupal weight (1.353 g) followed by BR-2 and AR-14 mulberry varieties. The deprived performance was recorded by feeding S-1 and S-146 varieties. Therefore, it was concluded that S-1635 is the best influenced mulberry variety among selected varieties.