“These silkworms are working out so well, we
might have to increase our colony tenfold next time!” Mark
exclaimed after I told him how much our chicks relished the test
caterpillars I’d tossed their way.
“Good idea,” I
replied. “But we have to increase our mulberry planting
first.” And that begged the question — which variety or
varieties should we be focusing on?
Although they’re not
large enough to provide many leaves for our miniature livestock
this year, we actually have five mulberry varieties on the farm at
the moment, so I decided to test them all. The silkworms had
already reached their fifth instar, at which point they’re able to eat tougher leaves,
so I tried to select nearly-mature leaves from all the trees at
roughly the same toughness level. (Younger leaves are always
preferred by the silkworms, but some of the trees didn’t have any
young leaves available and I didn’t want to mess up the experiment
by using young leaves from some trees and old leaves from others.)
I labeled each leaf
with a pen mark and placed one of each variety on top of the
silkworms, trying to cover approximately the same number of
caterpillars with each leaf. After about twenty minutes, I
photographed the results:
The Paper
Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera)
was slightly more palatable than my previous experiment suggested, but this was definitely the silkworms’ least
favorite offering. I gave this species a D for silkworms.
(As a side note, I
didn’t take a picture but I did try out a Chicago Hardy Fig leaf
in a previous taste test. The theory is that figs are in the
same family as mulberries and osage oranges, both of which
silkworms will eat, so figs might be similarly edible. Our
caterpillars did lightly taste the fig leaf, but soon moved on to
the mulberries, suggesting that figs probably wouldn’t even work
in a pinch the way Paper Mulberries might.)
I had guessed Oscar’s
Mulberry (Morus alba) would be the tastiest of the selection
since the leaf felt less rough and more tender than other
varieties’ leaves of the same age. And the silkworms did
enjoy this offering, but I’d say they rated it more of a B+ than
an A.
Silk Hope (Morus
alba x M. rubra) also seemed to be a B+ offering, which is actually better
than I thought the variety would do from what I’ve recently learned about its history.
Moving on to the
A-grade mulberries, the Illionis Everbearing (Morus
alba x M. rubra) tree I’ve been feeding to the silkworms since the beginning
of their lives was well received. Notice how the silkworms
have eaten over half of the leaf in the twenty minutes alloted to
the experiment!
And now for the
surprise grand-prize winner — a random rootstock mulberry!
Two of the Illinois Everbearing Mulberries we put in a few years
ago died back to the ground due to neglect, and what popped back
up was clearly not the named variety. Our mulberry source reports this is Morus alba variety Tatarica, and I’m now considering letting these trees grow for the silkworms rather than grafting a more tasty variety on top.
I want to repeat this
experiment a few more times to ensure the location of the leaves
within the bin didn’t impact the results, and I’d also like to
test some of our native Red Mulberries once I track down a
source. Finally, when we hatch our second batch of
silkworms, I want to run a taste test on much younger caterpillars
to see if they’re more or less picky at that age. But for
now, I’ll leave you with a video showing the speed with which a
19-day-old silkworm chows down on a new leaf. Inspiring,
isn’t it?
Very interesting experiment, thanks for doing that.
I might buy a few Alba seedlings (non grafted), since they are very cheap, and have the possible option of grafting onto them later.
I think you asked in a earlier post about amount of leaves required for silkworms.
I did read this :
“Three-year-old trees produce the best feed for silk production, and a healthy mulberry should yield from 20 to 30 pounds of leaves during the time your worms are in their growing stages. (That’s about enough greenery to supply 100 wrigglers with chow for the 30 days—more or less—that they’ll need food.”
http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/raising-silkworms-zmaz79mjzraw.aspx#ixzz2WiAWI8SO
Not sure how true that is, but my initial reaction is that is a fair amount of work to do for 100 chicken feeder worms (I am lazy though).
Anyway the mulberry leaves and fruit will still be excellent for animal feed in themselves, if the silkworms ever become too much work.
Jeff — I agree that the amount of work is high compared to the reward — I suspect that’s why most people don’t do silkworms on a small scale. On the other hand, once the system is running, I suspect the work time would only come down to 5 or 10 minutes per day with up to a thousand silkworms. That’s assuming your trees are right on your doorstep (or right beside the vegetable garden, where you’re going anyway for lunch and dinner veggies). At that point, the economies of scale start looking better.
Yes, once you have system working and the knowledge to keep it going, it shouldn’t take much time.
I guess if you are interested in raising silkworms (as I am) it wouldn’t be an onerous task.
I find the whole topic of farming insects for livestock food fascinating.
I have just purchased a Mulberry tree and found some mature trees in my neighbourhood, so hopefully I can dabble in it one day.
Thinking of growing worms on trees, have you considered catalpa worms?
Eric — That’s a great idea! The only thing I know about catalpa worms is that they are, I believe, what defoliated my father’s tree in South Carolina. That’s definitely something to research, and might explain why catalpas are a common yard tree in farm areas around here.