author(s)
Babita Kumari, Hadi Husain Khan, Kuldeep Verma, Sahebji and Rahul Patel

abstract
Sericulture means the production of silk from silkworm. The Eri silkworm, Phylosamia ricini highly fed upon castor as a host plant. In laboratory study we were used 5 plant species, viz., Calotropis gigantea, Nerium odorum, Leucaena leucocephala, Parthenium hysterophororus, Annona squamosa, Pongamia pinnata and Terminalia catappa for feeding the 5^th instar larvae of Eri silk worm after pre-starvation period of 25 min. In case of Calotropis gigantea, the larvae started feeding initially than stopped in a short period and showed only 10% larval death within an hour. In Terminalia catappa and Leucaena leucocephala, the worms were not feeding. The moulting period for all the larval stages ranged from 4.5 to 5.5 days on different host plants. It was short in favourable plants. The result of the experiment showed 90% healthy Silkworm form cocoon. The quantity and quality of silk was better.