Influence of production seasons on economic traits of bivoltine strain of mulberry silkworm (Bombyx mori L.) in Melkassa Agricultural Research Center

<title>Abstract</title> <p>Production seasons play a crucial role in the silkworm, Bombyx mori L., growth, reproduction, as well as silk yield and quality. This experiment was conducted with an objective to know the degree of phenotypic difference of the economic traits and the productivity of different breeds in Melkassa Agricultural Research Center under different production seasons based on different response variables measured from one mulberry silkworm strain. In this study, a Chinese (Black Plain, bivoltine) strain was taken as the study unit. In this study, three production seasons, namely wet rainy, cold dry, and hot dry, were evaluated for their effect on the rearing performance of mulberry silkworm strains. In this experiment, characters of the tested silkworm strains reared during the wet rainy season were superior as compared to cold dry and hot dry seasons. The data revealed that the Chinese bivolitine silkworm strain reared under wet rainy production season showed higher fecundity (356.4 ± 40.7), a lower incubation period (8.3 ± 1.29), lower larval mortality (5.7 ± 3.8), a higher larval weight (1.8 ± 0.12), a high effective rate of rearing (83.2 ± 7.97), a high number of cocoons harvested per 300 worms (247.7 ± 23.8), cocoon weight (1.55 ± 0.08), pupal weight (1.28 ± 0.068), shell weights (0.26 ± 0.032), and shell ratio percentage (21.9 ± 1.9). As a result, this finding proved that rearing silkworms during a wet, rainy season will make silk producers more productive. Hence, the study also suggests that silkworm rearing under cold dry season and hot dry season can be enhanced by simulating the environmental conditions of the wet rainy season.</p>