Effect of Glyphodes pyloalis Walker (Pyralidae: lepidoptera) infested leaves on the commercial characters of silkworm hybrid (NB4D2 X SH6) B. mori L.

Abstract

The study was conducted on silkworm larvae fed with infested leaves of two mulberry varieties viz Kokuso 20 and Goshoerami and also another lot of larvae were fed with fresh leaves of these varieties as a control. Student's t-test was applied for analysis of data. Observations were made on some commercial characters like larval duration, larval weight, cocoon yield, single cocoon weight, single shell weight, shell ratio and filament length. In all these observations, it was found that there was a more negative impact on the traits when the silkworm larvae were fed with infested Kokuso 20 leaves as compared to infested Goshoerami leaves. The minimum (2.52%) and maximum (22.47%) increase in larval duration were recorded in silkworms when they were fed with the Glyphodes pyloalis Walker infested leaves of kokuso-20 and Goshoerami respectively.