For those who have silkworkms and their own mulberry tree

I found the following article that I thought was interesting. I have been feeding the 200 small silkworms I got a week ago fresh mulberry leaves daily and they have tripled in size. I also have not seen a dead one yet. It is starting to cool off here (Texas) so I may not have fresh leaves beyond 30 days from now so the article below shows an alternative to buying silkworm chow.

http://rms1.agsearch.agropedia.affrc.go.jp/contents/JASI/pdf/society/34-3405.pdf

of course, if the scientists that did this study wanted to know about freezing vegetables and retaining vitamin content they could have ask my grandma who has been doing it the same way for years.

Howdy Reptoman,

Thanks for the article . I'll have to try-out the boiling water blanching and then freezing. The article says that the leaves were still good at producing healthy silkworms even after 120 days with the leaves in the freezer. I've been using mulberry leaves for my silkworms whenever the leaves are in season. I've been able to keep rinsed, wet leaves inthe frig at about 40F for at least a month. They are usually still pickable until about Christmas around my town. Sometime after that I'll end-up having to wait until about May before the next batch of leaves have sprouted and are big enough to harvest again.

i am glad i ran across the article. I blanched and froze several small bags tonight. I will try keeping a bag in the fridge as well. These silkworms grow incredibly fast!

Mono Diets

When feeders naturally only eat one thing such as mulberry leaves, in this case it is easier to supply them with a complete diet as they naturally only eat one thing. Feeding fresh mulberry leaves is superior to the chows. It also makes silkworms extremely economical to use as a staple feeders when you have access to free leaves. By feeding the silkworms mulberry leaves you are also making more nutrtional feeders for your pets.

Digby Rigby [email protected]
Email is faster than private message to reach us

Does anyone still have this pdf?

The link is dead.
If anyone could share a pdf, I would appreciate it.
TIA