EFFECT OF DROPPING OF MATURE SILKWORM AND ITS IMPACT ON COCOON OUALITY AND REELABILITY

Mounting Works requires the most intensive labor during a short period. Normal practice is to hand picking the mature Worms, however, this practice limits the scale of rearing and great risk is involved due to labour dependency. To overcome this critical situation a worm separator was fabricated. This machine works on vibration and due to vibration mature worms get dislodged from mulberry shoot and collected them for mounting. The ideal height from which mature worms fallen are studied and it was observed that if worm falls from 100 cm height there is no detrimental effect on the mature worms and cocoon & reeling characters. Any height above to this leads to deteriorates the reeling parameters. Improvement in mounting technology has to be done with priority to produce quality cocoons and reduction in labor requirement.