Influence of Host Plants on Growth, Development, Nutritional Indices and Silk Production of Muga Silkworm Antheraea assamensis Helfer

Muga silk is a unique gift of nature synthesized by Antheraea assamensis Helfer which is endemic to North-east India. A. assamensis is polyphagous in nature and feed on different host plants that are classified into primary types, Persea bombycina (King ex kost) and Litsea monopetala (Roxb. ex Baker), and secondary types Litsea salicifolia (Roxb.ex Nees), Litsea citrata (Linn). Traditional farmers prefer P. bombycina leaves for rearing. L. salicifolia is used by farmers for maintaining the diseased, lately hatched and weak silkworms. Chawki rearing has been introduced into muga culture, in which early instars are reared in indoor condition and late instars are reared in outdoor conditions. The concept is found to be effective for better production of muga silkworms. So, we designed the present study to examine the effect of shifting of the larvae from one host plant to another between early and late instars using both primary and secondary host plants in the greenhouse located within the Botanical garden of Dibrugarh University, Assam. The study revealed that host plants have significant effect (p<0.05) on growth and silk production of silkworm. Based on larval growth, nutritional efficiency, and shell ratio percentage we recommend L. salicifolia-L. monopetala combination as the best candidate and P. bombycina – L. monopetala as the second best for further study and field trials.