On-Station Yield Trial Evaluation of Promising Silkworm Hybrids in the Philippines

On-station silkworm rearing trials were done in three distinct seasons (January-February, April-May, and July-August) at the Sericulture Research and Development Institute in Bacnotan, La Union, Philippines to evaluate the cocoon yield and quality of the five (5) newly-developed bivoltine silkworm hybrids (DMMMSU 108 x DMMMSU 119, DMMMSU 110 x DMMMSU 113, DMMMSU 110 x DMMMSU 119, DMMMSU 119 x DMMMSU 110), and DMMMSU 119 x DMMMSU 108).These were compared to the local single cross bivoltine hybrid, DMMMSU 222in terms of cocoon characteristics such as cocoon yield, effective rearing rate, single cocoon weight, and cocoon shell percentage.The data gathered were statistically analyzed using the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) in Completely Randomized Design (CRD).Tukey's Honest Significant Difference (HSD) was used to test the significance among all the hybrids and against the control hybrid.The results revealed variations in the performance of the different hybrids on cocoon characters and in different rearing seasons.Among the five new hybrids, DMMMSU 119 x DMMMSU 108 consistently performed better than the controlin terms of effective rearing rate (ERR) and cocoon yield per box (CYPB), particularly in the July-August and January-February seasons.DMMMSU 108 x DMMMSU 119 also performed better over the control hybrid when reared in the April to May and July to August rearing seasons.DMMMSU 110 x DMMMSU 119 performed betterthan the control hybrid during the January to February rearing season.Overall, these hybrids are recommended for further trials in the farmer's field for validation.