Effects of forestry host plants, rearing seasons and their interaction on cocoon productivity of tropical tasar silkworm, Antheraea mylitta in uttarakhand

Abstract

Keywords:Tropical forests, forest dependent people, forest based livelihood opportunity, vanya sericulture, poverty alleviation, socioeconomic development of Uttarakhand Antheraea mylitta Drury (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae) is a commercial silk producing forest insect of India, but it has never been experimented in Uttarakhand state in spite of the huge availability of its forestry host plants. This is the first study on A. mylitta in Uttarakhand. The goal of this study is to introduce forest based commercial rearing of A. mylitta, in tropical forest areas of Uttarakhand to reduce poverty among forest dependent people. In current study, we assessed the effect of seven forest tree species, rearing seasons, and their interactions on cocoon productivity of Daba (bivoltine) ecorace of A. mylitta in the New Forest of FRI, Dehra Dun during 2012 and 2013 and collected the data that was analysed by two-way completely randomized block factorial design. Post HOC Tukey's HSD test was carried out to compare the homogeneous pairs of means. We also carried out Evaluation Index analysis to rank the tested forestry host plants for better growth and development of A. mylitta under the climatic condition of Uttarakhand. Analysis of variance indicated that cocoon yield of A. mylitta differed significantly between rearing seasons (DF=1, F=88.24, p<0.05) and host plants (DF 6, F= 368.63, p<0.05); however, their interactions were found insignificant (DF=6, F=0.99, p>0.05). In first rearing season of July-August, there was higher cocoon yield than the second season of SeptemberNovember. Results indicated that Terminalia alata fed larvae showed significantly higher cocoon yield (164.11 cocoons/300 larvae); followed by, T. tomentosa (148.89 cocoons), T. arjuna (140.00 cocoons) and Lagerstroemia speciosa (129.47 cocoons) fed larvae. Whereas, Lagerstroemia tomentosa fed larvae that was used by the first time in India, showed lowest cocoon yield (48.81 cocoons), followed by T. chebula (72.53 cocoons) fed larvae. Cocoon yield of T. tomentosa and T. arjuna fed larvae of A. mylitta did not differ significantly with each other. Materials and Methods Out door rearing of A. mylitta on seven forestry host plantsWe investigated the effect of seven forestry host plants