Development of Pull Strips Mountage for Samia ricini Donovan and Mounting Performances Over Traditionally Used Mountages

The materials used and the interior environment in mountage system are two important factors that directly influence the cocooning process. Considering these factors, a pull strips mountage (PSM) system has been designed and fabricated using wood, cloth and sand mica. Comparative cocooning performance in the PSM of ripen Eri larvae from the same crop lot is found to be superior to other mountages widely use by the farmers. Good cocoon spinning is 98% in PSM. Flimsy and double cocoon formation is restricted to 0.5% only, whereas dead/non-cocooning larvae are found to constitute 1%. Good cocooning in PSM is 6.5% higher (at an average) than the other mountage systems. In flimsy cocoon formation, PSM shows a difference of 3.375% less than the average of 3.875% in other systems. In dead/non-cocooning larvae, PSM has been found have 2.125% economy over other systems. Further, in comparison to the rest of the mountage systems, cocoon spine in PSM is of superior quality in terms of cocoon and shell weight, which gives a higher silk ratio of 13.4%, indicating more yean recovery than cocoons’ spine in other systems. For equal quantity of cocoon, PSM's cocoon gives 0.94% more yean than that of other systems. Since, this is a labour-intensive process, PSM facilitates 88.73% less labour cost over the rest of the systems on an average.