• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.15-19
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• 2003

The study evaluated the influence of feeding different maturity leaves i.e., tender, medium, coarse and mixed leaves of three different maturity during late larval stages of new bivoltine race $(CSR_{3} {\times} CSR_{6})$. The data were compared with shoot feeding and control batches in which conventional feeding method was followed. The most of the larval and cocoon characters were recorded significantly higher in tender leaves fed batches followed by T4 batch (2 times tender and 1 time coarse leaves). Lowest melting percentage (1.494%) was recorded in T4 and highest (4.69%) was recorded in coarse leaf (T3) fed batches. Significantly higher post cocoon parameters viz., average filament length, non-breakable filament length, renditta and raw silk percentage were recorded in tender loaves fed batches.