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India is the second largest producer of mulberry raw silk with the annual production
of 16.81 thousand tons during 2006-07. However, over 94% of the silk produced in the
country is of multivoltine variety, which is less in productivity and quality compared to that
of bivoltine silk, which is produced in sericulturally advanced countries such as Japan
and China. Though attempts have been made ever since 1981 through different
sericulture development projects to increase the production of quality bivoltine silk, bivoltine
silk production has not caught up significantly. The major reasons identified for the
production of low quality silk in India could be attributed to the failure of market mechanisms to
pay remunerative prices to good quality cocoon as well as silk (Gopal and Asopa, 1993;
and Vasumathi, 2000) and production of cocoons and raw silk in small lots using
traditional technologies (Kumaresan, 2002).
The quality of silk is influenced by silkworm races, rearing management and the
process used for reeling such as cocoon stifling/drying, sorting, storing, cooking, reeling and
the skill of the reeler. Among these factors, it has been established that cocoon
quality contributes to the tune of about 80% of the raw silk quality (Shimazaki, 1964).
Cocoon quality is governed by several parameters, each of them being associated with a certain
level of importance (Anon, 1996). Some of the important quality parameters usually
considered are shell ratio, defective cocoon percentage, average filament length, average
non-broken filament length, denier, and reelability percentage. Each of the quality parameters has
its own relative significance on the reeling efficiency and raw silk quality. In this context,
a study has been taken up to analyze the extent of relationship of different factors on
raw silk quality. |
