Comparative performance analysis of mulberry silkworm (Bombyx mori L.) races for integration of superior yield and maximize profit in West Bengal

India has a prosperous and glorious history in silk production and its silk trade dates back to 15th century. Sericulture is practiced in many regions of India, where West Bengal ranks third in mulberry silk production. About 2000 villages are engaged in mulberry cultivation with plantation area of 37,883 acres. But nowadays, farmers have lack their interest in this sector due to low cost benefit ratio, high investment cost in terms of silk worm rearing, land uses and lack of proper knowledge on different races of Bombyx mori. Therefore, the present study has been aiming to find out the comparative performance of bivoltine, multivoltine, and F1 variety of B. mori by analysed the cocoon, post-cocoon characters, and silk related traits for identifying the best superior races of B. mori. The results showed that feeding habits of silkworm larvae of three races had significant effect on cocoon parameters. The average weight of ten 5th instar larvae of bivoltine was higher in comparison with multivoltine and F1 variety. Similar trends were obtained in the average length of silk thread from a single cocoon in bivoltine races, higher by 30% and 77.14% from F1 and multivoltine, respectively (P<0.05). We also inquired about capital investment and profit-making of three varieties. Net profit for bivoltine was significantly increased by 15.65% and 10.21% than multivoltine and F1 varieties, respectively.The heatmap analysis revealed that the bivoltine races of B. mori were separately clustered based on the positive correlation of measured variables mostly length of silk thread, renditta, dry cocoon weight, the average weight of larvae, present market price, leaves for rearing, net profit and selling price of cocoon per acre farmland; whereas, the multivoltine and F1 variety clustered in a separate group. From our findings, it is clear that the culture of bivoltine is preferable for the farmers who dont have enough landed property and also profitable in terms of cocoon, post cocoon and silk traits. Therefore, it is recommended that the farming of bivoltine silkworm is more gainfulcompared to F1 and multivoltine variety, and capable of more income generation than other traditional agricultural crops. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=191 SRC="FIGDIR/small/436391v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (53K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1bb1e89org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1d1bb69org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@6727f3org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@6ff918_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG O_FLOATNOFig.C_FLOATNO Graphical abstract represents the comparative performance of bivoltine, multivoltine and F1 races of B. mori on the aspect of biological and economic traits in tropical climate condition. C_FIG