Feeding on Lettuce and Mulberry Leaves Increases Silk Productivity and Biometrics of the Mulberry Silkworm Bombyx Mori

During the present study, two different host plants (lettuce and mulberry) were used for feeding 5th instar larvae of Bomby mori. In the case of treatment (T0), B. mori 5th instar larvae were daily fed on 4 meals of mulberry leaves (control treatment), while in treatment (T1), larvae were fed on 10 meals of lettuce leaves: 4 meals at the 1st day, 3 meals at the 2nd day, 2 meals at the 3rd day and a meal at the 4th day; the rest of the fourth daily meals were mulberry leaves. (T2), larvae were fed on 6 meals of lettuce leaves: 3 meals at the 1st day, 2 meals at the 2nd day and a meal at the 3rd day; the rest of the fourth daily meals were mulberry leaves. (T3) larvae were fed on 3 meals of lettuce leaves: 2 meals at the 1st day and a meal at the 2nd day; the rest of the fourth daily meals were mulberry leaves. (T4), larvae were fed on a meal of lettuce leaves at the 1st day: the rest of the fourth daily meals were mulberry leaves. (T5), larvae were daily fed on a meal of lettuce leaves and 3 meals of mulberry leaves. (T6), larvae were daily fed on 4 meals of lettuce leaves. The present results revealed that T5 significantly increased the larval weight as compared with the other treatments (T0, T1, T2, T3, and T4). While T2 significantly increased the mean of pupal, cocoon, cocoon shell and silk gland weights by about 46.2 %, 44.6 %, 37.6 % and 55.7% respectively as compared with the T0. The effect of feeding of B. mori 5th instar larvae on lettuce leaves on total and different haemocyte counts of B.mori last larval instar was also determined.