Abstract

FOOD ADDITIVES: SIGNIFICANCE OF ARTIFICIAL FOOD ON THE LARVAL GROWTH, AND IN POST COCOON PARAMETERS OF SILKWORM HYBRID

*Kalpna Sudan, Sakshi Sharma and Radhu Dawan

ABSTRACT

The Silkworm Bombyx mori is a monophagous lepidopteran insect which obtained its entire nutritional requirement from mulberry leaf, thus leaves of Morus species are the sole source of Silkworm. Nutritional quality of the leaves play a vital role in determining the health and growth of larva. In recent years several attempts have been made to fortify leaves with different beneficial nutrients to improve the quality crop. Dietary efficiency of silkworms play a major role in converting mulberry leaves consumed to silk. Ingestion of same amount of mulberry leaves under different environment and feeding regimes shows significant differences in digestion, absorption and conversion of ingested amount of food to body matte. The present paper focuses on the effects to be done to evaluate different foodadditives on Larval growth and Cocoon Parameters.

Keywords: Silkworm, Nutritional, mulberry, additives.