COMPARISON OF COCOON AND RAW SILK QUALITY PRODUCED FROM THREE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN KENYA

NZYOKI, AURELIA KAMANTHE

dc.contributor.author	NZYOKI, AURELIA KAMANTHE
dc.date.accessioned	2021-04-30T12:31:02Z
dc.date.available	2021-04-30T12:31:02Z
dc.date.issued	2020-12-17
dc.identifier.uri	https://ir.gretsauniversity.ac.ke/xmlui/handle/20.500.12736/2008
dc.description.abstract	Silk is a secretion from Bombyx Mori silkworm in the form of a cocoon, which is a continuous filament ranging from 1.2 to 1.4 km depending on silkworm feeding, silkworm strain, Temperature, Humidity etc. Although silk has been in use for many centuries worldwide, it is of the least researched fibre in Kenya. B. Mori silk has unique physical benefits and good properties which make it the highest priced natural fibre. The purpose of this study, was to compare B. mori cocoon quality and the raw silk quality produced from three production systems in Kenya. The production systems included Research, Large Scale and Small Scale. This study revealed that there was a difference in the cocoon quality and the quality of raw silk across the three production systems Research system had the highest Raw silk grade of 4A, followed by Large scale with a grade of 2A then finally small scale with a grade of B (very poor grade) Results also established that the longest silk filament length was from Research, with 1040m, followed by Large scale with 800m and lastly Small scale with 750m. Cleanliness in terms of percentages where different among the production systems, and notably Research’s cleanliness percentages were higher than the others for large scale farmer and small scale farmer. This study recommends sericulture research Centre to train Kenyan farmers on silk farming and how cocoon and raw silk quality is graded and tested. In addition, the research should provide good silkworm seed for both large scale farmer and small scale farmer to improve on cocoon and raw silk quality for cottage industries and export markets	en_US
dc.language.iso	en	en_US
dc.publisher	Gretsa University	en_US
dc.subject	Silk, cocoon	en_US
dc.title	COMPARISON OF COCOON AND RAW SILK QUALITY PRODUCED FROM THREE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN KENYA	en_US
dc.type	Thesis	en_US