Central Silk Board (CSB), the apex body of the Indian sericulture industry, has authorised three mulberry varieties for commercial use by sericulture farmers in the country.
The varieties those which received the CSB?s nod are Victory-1 (V-1), Anantha and Vishala. Central Sericulture Research and Training Institute (CSRTI), Sericultural Research Station in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka State Sericultural Research and Development Institute in Bangalore are breeders of these three mulberry varieties.
The CSB has recommended V-1 and Anantha varieties for the commercial use in South Zone covering the states including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Vishala has been authorised for all sericulture regions in India, which is second largest silk producer in the world and the world?s largest silk consumer.
Mulberry leaves is the only silkworm food plant. In Indian subtropical region, S-146 is the only popular and ruling mulberry genotype for silkworm rearing and mulberry leaf availability is in this region always the limiting factor. As a result, sub tropical region are contributing less than 10% of the country?s total silk production compared with more than 60% under tropical conditions.
In fact the supply-demand gap for raw silk, which has been produced from the cocoon developed by feeding mulberry leaves to silkworm, has been widening in the country. Despite several steps taken by the textile ministry, the production of raw silk has been increasing at slower pace. While the silk demand stood at around 27,000 tonne in the country, the sericulture farmers could produce only around 19,000 tonne. The shortage of 8,000 tonne has been met by the imports from China, which is the world?s largest silk producer. Karnataka ranks first accounting for around 50% of the silk produced in the country followed by Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.