Drury (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae) in Relation to Crop Seasons

5 Abstract: The evaluation of silk traits among the assorted ecoraces (Daba, Jata and Raily) of Indian tropical tasar silkworm, Antheraea mylitta Drury and their F hybrids during commercial crop rearing season have 1 revealed clear variation between them and as well with the parental ecoraces of seed crop season. The parental ecoraces and F hybrids have recorded improvement in shell weight and length of silk filament during 1 commercial crop season, while the silk yield was improved only in Jata ecorace (+21.1%) over same parent of seed crop season among the parents; and in Daba x Jata (+94.5%) and Jata x Daba (+82.6%) hybrid combinations over mid parent values among F hybrids. The silk filament denier has also shown improvement 1 in all the parental ecoraces during the commercial crop rearing season over their respective parents of seed crop season. However, the filament denier of Raily x Daba hybrid combination has recorded negative (-10.5%), while the other three F hybrids have shown improvement in filament denier over mid parent value. The study infers 1 that the economic performance of parental ecoraces and F hybrid combinations was superior during commercial 1 crop rearing season due to positive interaction with the prevailed favourable environment to optimize their phenotypic expression. The superior performance of parental and hybrid genotypes of tropical tasar silkworm of commercial crop season has contributed for higher silk yield and lengthier but high denier silk filament. Hence, the rearing of additional commercial silkworm seed of parental ecoraces and F hybrid combinations 1