BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF SILKWORMS BOMBYX MORI L. AFFECTED BY ARTIFICIAL NUTRITION IN COMPARISON WITH NATURAL NUTRITION

Abstract

: The present study was carried out during spring seasons, 2020 and 2021,the study aimed to evaluate the feeding of silkworm Bombyx mori L. on different artificial diet (T1-T2) in 2020 season and (T1-T2-T3) in 2021 season , on some biological, and technological aspects. The results indicated that the best results were recorded with T 2 diet especially for larvae which fed on young instar (R 1 which fed in 1 st and 2 nd instar) and R 2 which fed in 1 st , 2 nd and 3 th ), during the first season.While in the second season, the best results were noticed also with the larvae which fed on young instarin the treatments (T 1 and T 2 ) and the same sub treatment (R 1 and R 2 ) in comparison with other diets and control for biological indexes (larval weight and larval duration) and silk filament characteristics. The current study supports the trend towards the use of artificial diets during the 1 st and 2 nd instars, due to its importance in the process of natural silk production.