Sericulture activities are agro-based and also industrial based. The Agro-based part involves mulberry cultivation and silkworm rearing. India is the second largest producer of raw silk after China. Fortification of mulberry leaves with supplementary nutrient (Muniandy et al., 2001) and feeding silkworm is a useful modern technique to increase economic value of cocoon. Mulberry leaf quality is one of the major factor which have significant role in silkworm development. Keeping in view the above fact, an attempt was made by using V1 mulberry variety and food additives such as Corn, Soya, horse gram flour as supplementary nutrients. The purpose of this study is to know whether the food additives used in the present study have any effect on the total protein content of the silk gland and the activity of midgut enzymes such as Amylase and Protease. The present investigation clearly depicts that foliar application of horse gram flour as well as corn flour, increased protein content in the silk gland and protease as well as amylase enzyme activity in the midgut of FC1XFC2 hybrid. Hence, it is concluded that the supplementation of horse gram flour at a concentration of 10g/100g of leaves for 100 larvae may have beneficial effect in increasing the quantity of the silk production by enhancing the digestibility of the mulberry leaves and subsequent increase in the protein content of silk glands.
