Assessment of the Combination of Two Selected Mulberry Varieties (Morus Alba), S14 and S30 as Compared with Single Variety Fed to Silkworm (Bombyx Mori L.) on the Insect Performance

Abstract

The influence of different mulberry varieties on silkworm performance has been investigated in various studies. However, scanty information is available on the effect of combination of mulberry variety to feed the insect on the insect performance. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the influence of combination of two selected mulberry varieties (S14 and S30) of mulberry leaves as against feeding the insects with one of the varieties on its performance. Silkworm eggs (EJ2 í— EC1) were incubated for 10 days and newly hatched larvae were brushed, fed with mulberry leaves and reared following the standard protocol. The worms were separated into replicates of 100 worms/tray at the end of 1^st moulting. The rearing trays were laid in Randomized Complete Block Design with 5 treatments replicated 4 times where the treatments were S14, S30, S14(75%) + S30(25%), S14(50%) + S30(50%), S14(25%) + S30(75%). The worms were later mounted on chandrike at the completion of their larval stage for cocoon spinning and the spurn cocoon were harvested 5 days after mounting. The result of the study showed that highest larval weight was obtained when the worms were fed with the combination of mulberry varieties S14 (50%) + S30(50%) (2.24+0.08) at P<0.05 however the worms fed with only variety S30 all through produced the best results in terms of single cocoon weight, pupal weight, shell weight, total cocoon weight, number of cocoon formed and number of days to cocooning. This implies that mixture of different mulberry varieties to fed silkworm should be discouraged.