Comparative Performance of Three Silkworm Races Fed on Local Mulberry against Biological and Commercial Parameters
Comparative Performance of Three Silkworm Races Fed on Local Mulberry against Biological and Commercial Parameters
Sharon Zulfiqar1, Mubashar Hussain1*, Kiran Aftab1, Muhammad Faheem Malik1, Rizwan Khursheed2, Somia Liaqat1 and Maimoona Kanwal1
ABSTRACT
We evaluated the performance of biological and commercial parameters of three bivoltine silkworm races fed on local mulberry. The disease-free eggs of Chinese, Korean and Bulgarian races were obtained from Sericulture Research Laboratory, Lahore. The silkworm eggs were incubated at standard conditions. Larval rearing was maintained at standard rearing conditions of temperature (25 ± 1°C), Relative Humidity (75 ± 5 %), and photoperiod (12 light: 12 dark). The experiment was laid out in the Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with five replications. Bulgarian race showed significantly greater variations were observed in the mean larval weight (g) and mean larval length (cm) during all instars i.e. maximum larval weight i.e. 0.076g, 054g, 3.14g, 4.29g, and 6.23g in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th instars, respectively. A similar trend in the mean larval length (P < 0.05) was also observed. Significantly greater fecundity (437 no.), fertility (85.20%), and hatchability (84.40%) were recorded in the Bulgarian races which were significantly higher as compared to Chinese and Korean races. Similarly, cocoon weight (1.32 g), cocoon shell weight (0.28g), cocoon shell percentage (18.74 %) were recorded found in the Bulgarian race which was significantly greater (P < 0.05) than other two races. We documented that the Bulgarian race is promising and has great potential to perform on local mulberry under prevailing environmental conditions. We also suggest that popularizing sericulture as the allied sector of the agricultural economy needs to exploit the potential of the Bulgarian race for the production of hybrid silk seed.
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