Development of New Productive Bivoltine Silkworm (Bombyx mori L.) Hybrid, $APS_{83}$ $\times$ APS$_{102}$

Successful silkworm breeding attempts were made at Andhra Pradesh State Sericulture Research and Development Institute (APSSRDI), Hindupur, India in developing productive bivoltine silkworm hybrids. One hundred hybrid combinations involving 10 parents (five each of oval and peanut) were evaluated in complete diallel pattern and identified the combination APS$_{83}$ $\times$ APS$_{102}$ as most promising. This hybrid showed economic merit for the characters fecundity (524 eggs/laying), pupation percentage (96.0$\%$), cocoon yield per 10,000 larvae by weight (19.0 kg), cocoon weight (1.85 g), shell weight (41.7 cg), shell ratio (22.5$\%$), filament length (1,004 m), reelability (88.4$\%$), raw silk recovery (18.4$\%$) and neatness (92 point) over the control hybrid APS$_{9}$ $\times$ APS$_{8}$ The breeding process and identification of APS$_{83}$ $\times$ APS$_{102}$ is discussed in the paper.