Performance of Silkworm : Sarihan Ecorace

Contents Preface 1 Introduction 2 Materials and methods 3 Observation 4 Discussion References From the introduction Silk is a protein fibre produced by sericigenous insects belonging to family Saturniidae superfamily Bomycoidea order Lepidoptera which is one of the finest and most beautiful natural fibres of the world and is said to be the queen of the fibres It is yarn of life extruded by that unassuming caterpillar into a continuous filament It is secreted from the silk glands of the silkworm Basically there are two proteins which form the silk fibre viz fibroin which constitutes the core of the fibre and sericin a waxy substance which encase the fibroin Silk is as old as that of civilization itself According to available records and antiques of silk articles unearthed by archeologists China is the homeland of silk industry which dates back to at least 5000 years da huan et al For hundreds of years the Chinese guarded the secret of sericulture by imperial law According to popular legend the Chinese dominance of sericulture was weakened when emperor Justinian in the sixth century dispatched several monks on an espionage mission to bring back silkworm eggs from China They brought the eggs back to constentinopole from where it spread to different parts of the world In India sericulture is as old as Indian culture Datta silk especially tasar silk has been mentioned in the old epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata According to the Indian legend sericulture was introduced about 2000 years ago the wild silkmoth producing yellow silk fibre was very popular from the ancient time Mukherjee though according to European scholars Chinese bi voltine silk was introduced in India in 140 BC  435 pp.…