Selection of potential parental breeds of bivoltine silkworm bombyx mori l. for tropical climate

With the objective of selecting suitable parental breeds for silkworm breeding program, a total of twenty (10 oval and 10 dumb-bell) bivoltine silkworm genetic stocks maintained at CSR&TI, Mysore and CSGRC, Hosur were evaluated in three replications during three seasons of the year. Data was collected and assessed for twelve traits of economic importance, viz., fecundity, cocoon yield/10000 larvae by number and weight, cocoon weight, shell weight, cocoon shell ratio, filament length and size, raw silk percentage, renditta, neatness and boil-off loss through multiple trait evaluation index method. Significant variations among the breeds were observed and based on highest Evaluation Index values for 10 economic parameters, JPN8, CSR27, CSR17, S5 (oval) and S9, D13, CSR26, CSR16 (dumb-bell) were identified as potential breeds for future breeding program aiming at developing promising bivoltine breeds/hybrids for tropical conditions.