Abstract

The fundamental aim of silkworm breeding is to get robust and sturdy silkworm larvae for easy rearing and production of best cocoons in quality and quantity for a high yielding cocoon crop. In Pakistan, efforts are being made continuously to give boost to the sericulture industry by developing pure parental silkworm lines suitable for rearing for commercial purposes. The study was carried out to evaluate genetic potential of the eleven pure silkworm lines (PAK-1, PAK-2, PAK-3, PAK-4, M-101, M-103, M-104, M-107, S-1, PFI-1 and PFI-2) for breeding and cocoon production during 2006 - 2008 at Sericulture Research Laboratory, Lahore. On the basis of the index values ranking M-101 (57.55), PAK-3 (52.22), PFI-2 (52.04), PFI-1 (51.14)and PAK-4 (50.52) were identified as good performer for various economically important traits and were selected for field trials, hybridization and other breeding programmes.

Key words: Inbred lines, Genetic potential, Pakistan.