Influence of food additives on silkworm rearing and post rearing parameters in silkworm

Abstract

Sericulture has been fully recognized as an important rural industry in India and elsewhere and is practiced as a house hold industry. The silkworm Bombyx mori.L, is a monophagous lepidopteron insect which has been domesticated for more than five thousand years. Silkworm obtain its entire nutritional requirement from mulberry leaves because this insect is monophagous and can complete its life cycle on mulberry leaves entirely thus leaves of Morus species are the sole source of the food for silkworm, Bombyx mori, nutritional quality of the leaves play a vital role in determining the health and growth of  larvae. The feeding of nutritionally enrich leaves showed better growth and development of silkworm larvae, as well as directly influence on the quality and quantity of silk production (S. Krishnaswami1971). Nearly 70% of the silk proteins produced by silkworm are directly derived from the protein of mulberry leaves(E. S. Narayanan1967). The silkworm larvae are highly sensitive and respond sharply to the changes of the leaf quality. Variations in quality of the mulberry leaves and climatic factors are many times reflected on the performance of the cocoon production. The mulberry leaves mainly constitute proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, sterols, phagostimulants and minerals. Such nutritional requirement in the food consumption has direct impact on the all genetic character likes cocoon weight, quantity of silk produced, pupation, reproductive traits and quality (Ramesha et al.,2010). The present study also deals with effect on larval growth, cocoon and post cocoon parameters of silkworm hybrid which are feed with different food additives.