EMN
Dimapur, December 16
Coinciding with 125 years Jubilee celebration of Mokokchung town, an event about silkworms and silk called the ‘Muga Krishi Vigyan Mela” was held on December 14 in the District Sericulture Office of Mokokchung district.
The event was jointly organized by the Central Silk Board of the Ministry of Textiles and the Nagaland department of Sericulture.
During the inaugural function, the chief guest of the event, deputy commissioner of Mokokchung district Sushil Kumar Patel exhorted the farmers in the line of value addition activities to uplift the economy of the farmers. He said that Muga (Assam silkworm) silk which is found only in the north-east region of India in the entire world have a vast potential to put this district on the map of silk production.
Also, the additional director of Sericulture Imtisosang delivered a speech, talking about enriched and fertile soil found in Nagaland. He encouraged the farmers to ‘utilize the soil honestly.’
The inauguration was followed by distribution of rearing appliances to farmers by members of the Central Silk Board.
The technical session was led by Dr. B.K. Singh, Scientist-D and Head, MSSO, CSB, Guwahati and trained the farmers on latest packages of production technology on Muga-culture.
Alemkumzuk, district sericulture officer, highlighted the farmers on MNREGA convergence program. He said that whatsoever ‘land-based agriculture activities may be done, the man-day cost shall be provided only through their Job cards, as the central government has clearly mentioned in the operational guidelines. Therefore, unless and until the farmers know their benefit of job card, the farmers will be deprived from availing their man-day cost, he said.
Altogether 172 farmers attended the program.
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity (sericulture).
The shimmering appearance of silk is due to the triangular prism-like structure of the silk fiber, which allows silk cloth to refract incoming light at different angles, thus producing different colors.
Silk is produced by several insects, but generally only the silk of moth caterpillars has been used for textile manufacturing. There has been some research into other types of silk, which differ at the molecular level.
Silk is mainly produced by the larvae of insects undergoing complete metamorphosis, but some adult insects such as web-spinners also produce silk, and some insects such as raspy crickets produce silk throughout their lives. Silk production also occurs in Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), silverfish, mayflies, thrips, leafhoppers, beetles, lacewings, fleas, flies, and midges. Other types of arthropod produce silk, most notably various arachnids such as spiders.
• Silk is the queen of all fabrics, she is as old as time itself and we thought you would like to share in some interesting and little known facts supplied and collated for your bemusement by silk wholesalers
• Silk culture has been practiced for at least 5000 years in China
• The Silkworm (Bombyx mori, Latin for “silkworm of the mulberry tree”) is, technically, not a worm. It is the larva or caterpillar of a moth in the family Bombicidae
• A silkworm’s diet consists solely of mulberry leaves
• The silkworm (Bombyx mori) is entirely dependent on humans for its reproduction and no longer occurs in the wild. It is native to northern China. Its nearest wild relative is Bombyx mandarina with which it is able to hybridize
• The silkworm female deposits around 400 eggs at a time. In an area the size of your monitor screen, about 100 moths would deposit more than 40,000 eggs, each about the size of a pinhead
• The female dies almost immediately after depositing the eggs; the male lives only a short time after. The adult does not eat during the short period of its mature existence
• After growing to its maximum size at around 6 weeks, the larva is about 10,000 times heavier than when it hatched
• One hectare of mulberry trees yields about eleven tons of leaves, producing around 450 pounds of cocoons, but just about 85 pounds of raw silk
• The cocoon is made of a single continuous thread of raw silk around 1 kilometer (2/3 of a mile) long
• About 2,000 to 3,000 cocoons are required to make a pound of silk. One pound of silk represents about 1,000 miles of filament
• It takes silk from over 2,000 cocoons to produce a single kimono
• Based on 1 kilometer (2/3 of mile) per cocoon, ten unraveled cocoons could theoretically extend vertically to the height of Mount Everest
• The shimmering appearance for which silk is prized comes from the fiber’s triangular prism-like structure which allows silk cloth to refract incoming light at different angles
• Strong as steel in tensile strength, silk is the strongest natural fiber known to man
• Silk is much lower in density compared to cotton, wool or nylon. It is, therefore, highly moisture absorbent, able to absorb as much as a third of its own weight in moisture without feeling damp
• Silk has a miniscule percentage of the global textile fiber market – less than 0.2%. Yet the actual trading value of silk and silk products is in many billions of dollars since the unit price for raw silk is roughly twenty times that of raw cotton
• Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan also have a significant production of raw silk and silk yarn. Brazil is the only non-Asian country that is a significant producer of raw silk or silk yarn
• United States is the largest silk importer in the world
