Construction of Life-tables for mulberry silk worm (Bombyx mori Linnaeus race Nistari) on different species of Mulberry plants

Abstract

The commercial production of silk is called as "Sericulture" Which is a labour intensive, agro-baseed cottage industry, ideally suited not only to India, but to all developing country of tropical belt. Mulberry Silk worn1 (Bombyx mori. L) is an monophagous and multivoltine insect without dipauses. The Present study entitled "Construction of life tables for mulberry silk wortn (B. mori Linnaeus race Nistari) on the different species of mulberry plants" was carried out on Sericulture Research, Demonstration and Training Unit lab'l Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, S. V. P. University of Agriculture and Technology Modipuram, Meerut (U.P.) during 2009 and 2010. Investigations were undertaken to record the (i) Construction of age specific life table. (ii) Construction of stage specific life table (iii) Construction of life and fertility table for female.The age specific life table revealed that the age specific survivorship on the four species of mulberry plants viz S-146, TR-10, S-1635 and V-1 , The B. mori L race Nistari reared on S-146 took the shortest time (37 days) to completes it's generation while V-1 fed larvae required the maximum, 41 days. The apparent mortality rate was recorded TR-IO (20%) and the lowest (15%) on S-1635 and the potential fecundity was recorded 356.00 on S- 146 and the lowest 295.00 on V -l.Based on the results obtained from the present study, it may be concluded that, among all the four species of mulberry plant S-146 was the most preferred species of mulberry plants for over all development of B. mori Linneaus race Nistari