Division of Sericulture, Sher-e-Kashmir, University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Srinagar - 191121, Jammu and Kashmir, India
*Corresponding author: E Mail: bhat_bilal@rediffmail.com
Online published on 7 April, 2014.
The quality of mulberry leaf is influenced by several factors such as variety, agronomic practices, biotic and abiotic components. In spite of adopting all these, sometimes the nutritive values are degraded due to insect pest damage. Insect pest Glyphodes pyloalis Walker takes a heavy toll of mulberry especially from July to October under Kashmir climatic conditions. Feeding of Glyphodes infested leaves to silkworms affects their growth and development which in turn brings down the quality of cocoons and silk. In the present investigation, the nutritional efficiency was studied by feeding silkworm hybrid NB4D2 × SH6 with Glyphodes infested and healthy mulberry leaves from two mulberry varieties namely Goshoerami and Kokuso-20 and the food consumption and utilization study was confined to fifth instar only. The infested leaves exerted adverse effects on the nutritional efficiency viz., food ingested and digested, approximate digestibility, efficiency of conversion of ingested food into body matter, efficiency of conversion of digested food into body matter and growth rate of silkworms
Glyphodes pyloalis, mulberry leaves, silkworm, dietry efficiency
