Process Flowchart of Silk Production

Cultivation of Silkworms

The silk worm is the caterpillar of a small half moths belonging to “bombyx” which lives only on leaves of mulberry tree. The silk worm spent their entire life in eating these leaves.

Hatching

Eggs of silk worm are warm up for hatching in winter. It is done by spreading the eggs over the trays in the hatching shed and chopped leaves of mulberry trees are spread on the perforated paper. For eating the leaves, the worm climbs through the holes.

Moulting

After 35 days of hatching worm is 10000 times as heavy as it was born and it has become greenish white cater pillar. Now it is ready to start spinning, silk worm built its cocoon to settle down in it.

Spinning the Cocoon

The liquid silk comes from two glands called spinneret in the silkworm head, as the liquid comes out it is hardened into very fine filaments which are coated by a gummy substance called sericin which comes from other two glands nearly.

Sorting Cocoons

The cocoons are sorted according to color, size, shape, and texture, as all these affect the final quality of the silk.

Softening the Sericin

The cocoons are put through a series of hot and cold immersions, as the sericin must be softened to permit the unwinding the filament as one continuous filament.

Reeling the Filament

The process of unwinding the filament from cocoon is called reeling.