Silkworm Division

Central Sericultural Germplasm Resources Centre (CSGRC), Hosur is conserving silkworm germplasm under tropical conditions and regularly characterize, evaluate and identify potential silkworm genetic resources for easy access by the breeders and other users for research programme to utilize valuable germplasm towards silkworm crop improvement. The centre plays a pivotal role in the inter institutional collaboration for screening /testing/evaluation of sericultural germplasm through traditional as well as molecular tools. Presently CSGRC is maintaining 490 silkworm genetic resources in the gene bank (Table-1) comprising 84 multivoltine accessions (indigenous-74 & exotic-10), 383 bivoltine accessions (indigenous-223 & exotic-160) and 23 mutants (exotic) collected from 9 states of the country and 14 countries across the world. The donors of these silkworm accessions have been CSR& TI, Mysore, Berhampore & Pampore and Regional Sericultural Research Stations, Jammu, Sahaspur, Jorhat, Kalimpong, Coonoor in addition to this Research and development institutes of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Based on the evaluation data, each germplasm can be identified and labelled for the special characters on rearing, grainage and reeling parameters and can be used as pre-breeding material / used for commercial exploitation. Conservation must be accompanied by effective utilization of germplasm on sustainable basis so as to enhance the usefulness of large collections, which will justify long-term investments on conservation of gene pool.  In order to store huge data generated on mulberry and silkworm germplasm resources, two softwares were developed viz., Mulberry Germplasm Information System (MGIS) and Silkworm Germplasm Information System (SGIS).