Cultivation of Food Plants for Silkworms (Moriculture)

The first of sericulture's three components is growing the silkworm's own food supply, and since Bombyx mori feeds exclusively on mulberry leaves, this dedicated branch of cultivation is called moriculture. Modern sericulture uses improved mulberry varieties — Victory1, S36, G2 and G4 among them — bred to tolerate a range of agro-climatic and soil conditions. Mulberry is best planted in June, July, November or December, and its crop-production cycle covers land preparation, preparing cuttings, the actual planting, maintaining a mulberry nursery, managing pests and disease, and periodically uprooting old plants to establish fresh gardens. Where mulberry is grown as a tree rather than a bush, plants are kept to a heigh …