National Research Development Corporation PRODUCTION OF NUTRID-177 (AN ARTIFICAL DIET FOR SILKWORMS)

PLANT PARAMETERS
Capacity, TPA	75
No. of shifts/day	1
Working days/Year	300
Land Required, m2	100
Covered Area, m2	50
MANPOWER
Managerial	1
Skilled	1
Unskilled	2
RAW MATERIAL
Mulberry leaves	Chemicals
Packing material	Plant products
UTILITIES
Electrical power	Raw water
PLANT & MACHINERY
Electronic balance,	Autoclave
Hot air oven, Mixer,	Refrigerator
Automatic weighing &	packing machine
TECHNOLOGY STATUS
Laboratory scale and	Tested in field
The above figures are for budgetary purpose only and subject to change in subsequent offers.

A new artificial diet, Nutrid, has been developed for silkworms for supplementation of mulberry leaves during rearing of first and second instar larvae. The technology is simple and utilizes indigenously available ingredients. The ingredients consist of mulberry leaf powder, plant products and chemicals which are mixed in a pre-determined quantities, pressure cooked and packed in air-tight polythene bags. The product can be preserved at 5-10^oC for 20-25 days and at 25^oC for 5-10 days. The packet contains information on preservation and its use.

Successful field trials have been conducted to compare performance of Nutrid with mulberry leaves. It has been found that feeding of young silkworm larvae with Nutrid is more economical and results in saving of at least Rs.150.00 in comparison to feeding with mulberry leaves for (100 dfls). Nutrid also has other associated benefits of rearing:

Salient features of the product:

Rearing of silkworm (first and second instar) on balanced nutrition results in healthy growth and successful cocoon crop.

Rearing of young silkworm (first and second instar) provides more hygiene which avoids infection of diseases.

Saves labour and avoids too much handling of young silkworm (first and second instar) rearing on Nutrid.

Saving of chawki leaf (first and second instar) from the mulberry plant increases the yield of mature leaves for late age rearing (shortage of mature leaves is common in the field conditions).

National Research Development Corporation, a Government of India Enterprise, is a premier technology transfer Corporation with four decades of experience. It has helped establish over one thousand projects in the small and medium scale sector. The supply of technologies and services to entrepreneurs extend both in the developing and developed countries like USA, Germany, Malaysia , Burma , Nepal, Senegal, Madagascar, Indonesia Philippines, Vietnam, Lanka, Kenya, Brazil, Bangladesh and Egypt.