Identification of Potential Crossbreeds of Mulberry Silkworm, Bombyx mori L. and Their Performance Under Tropical Stress

Department of Sericulture, Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur – 515 003, Andhra Pradesh, India.(Received 02 January 2011; Accepted 19 May 2011)The performance of five newly evolved cross breedswere evaluated across seasons to understand the gen-otype and environment interactions and their stabilityunder fluctuating tropical environmental conditionsalong with control hybrids PM×CSR2 and APM1×APS8. The data was collected on eight economic traitsnamely fecundity, yield per 10,000 larvae by number,yield per 10,000 larvae by weight, survival rate, cocoonweight, cocoon shell weight, cocoon shell ratio and fil-ament length. The data was subjected for Analysis ofVariance (ANOVA) and relevant statistical methods.The performance data obtained was further subjectedfor multiple trait evaluation index method. The rankswere adjudicated based on the index values. The twohybrids viz., MSO3×APS45 and MSO1×APS12 per-formed well under diversified environmental condi-tions indicating their overall stability and superiority.These hybrids revealed highly significant (p < 0.01)improvement for the majority of the traits over thecontrol hybrids. Key words: Silkworm, Hybrid, Seasonal effects, Envi-ronment, Performance, Consistency