Physiological and biochemical characteristics associated with leaf retention in mulberry (<i>Morus</i> spp.)

Abstract

Mulberry leaf production plays a key role in the sustainability of silk industry as the silkworm Bombyx mori can not survive on any other leaf. In fact, silkworm merely acts as an instrument to convert mulberry leaf proteins into the silk proteins. In India, West Bengal is the second highest silk producing state but with varied climatic conditions and suffers to a great extent from non-availability of adequate quantity of quality leaf during the colder months. Delayed sprouting, slow growth rate and higher leaf fall are the major factors contributing this leaf scarcity. To overcome these problems, nine mulberry genotypes, developed through systematic breeding, were tested against the current popular variety for 3 consecutive years taking into account of their performance during the colder months. Annual leaf yield was highest in CT-44 (48 mt/ha/ year) followed by CT-11 (44 mt/ha/year). Leaf senescence was least in CT-44 (9.8%) followed by CT-11 (16.8%) while the check variety showed 20% leaf senescence. Significantly higher values were observed for net photosynthetic rate (P n ) (14.

On-line identification of silkworm pupae gender by short-wavelength near infrared spectroscopy and pattern recognition technology

“…The quality of silk depends not only on the quality of the mulberry leaves but also on the silkworm varieties. 2 The sorting of the male and female silkworm pupae is an essential part of silkworm breeding to improve the next generation of unique genetic phenotype by hybridization. 3 Presently, the identification of the male and female silkworm pupae relies mainly on observing the characteristics of external genitalia by human visual inspection.…”