Agriculture & Horticulture

Biography

Biography: S Chandrashekhar

Abstract

The foliar constituents of castor genotypes viz., major and secondary nutrients had marginal influence on growth indices showing positive trend with respect to improvement in the performance of eri silkworm. Major nutrient like nitrogen and secondary nutrient like calcium had significant relationship with growth indices, while the growth indices were non-significant with other major (phosphorus and potassium) and secondary nutrients (magnesium and sulphur). The growth indices viz., silk index (r=0.7707), oviposition index (r=0.7263), leaf – silk conversion rate (r=0.7096), growth index by per cent pupation (r=0.7281) and net reproductive rate (r=0.7386) with nitrogen content of castor leaves showed significant positive relationship among them. Further, calcium content was found to have significantly positive correlation with larval weight index (r=0.8969), cocoon weight index (r=0.9548), silk index (r=0.9688), eclosion index (r=0.8936), oviposition index (r=0.9425), leaf-cocoon ratio (r=0.8408), leaf - egg ratio (r=0.8672), leaf – cocoon conversion rate (r=0.8521), leaf – silk conversion rate (r=0.9323), growth index by per cent pupation (r=0.9815), growth index by per cent moth emergence (r= 0.9609) and net reproductive rate (r=0.9492), while the trend was reverse with larval duration index (r=-0.9405), pupal duration index (r=-0.9293) and larval -pupal duration index (r=-0.9579).