A comparative study of regional and seasonal variations of muga silk yarn characteristics

Autumn and spring season harvested muga cocoons from Jorhat, Kamrup and Lakhimpur districts of Assam revealed significant regional and seasonal variation on yarn parameters. Kamrup region showed better reeling performance with more reelability percentage (54.03%), raw silk recovery percentage (29.26%), silk yield (27.41 g), denier (52.76 d), breaking load (0.19 kg) and elongation (33.07%) compared to other two regions. However, significantly higher tenacity (3.94 g/d) of silk yarn was found in Jorhat district compared to other two regions. Among the two seasons, all the parameters were better in autumn season (53.07%, 28.27%, 26.32 g, 51.35 d, 0.17 kg and 4.08 g/d, respectively) than spring season. But higher silk elongation (31.85%) was observed in spring season. The interaction effect due to region and season was observed to be non-significant in all aspects.