Influence of cocoon stifling and storage on silk reeling performance and quality of muga raw silk

The hot air electrical stifling study has been conducted to evaluate the influence of electrical stifling temperature, stifling hours and duration of cocoon preservation on reeling performance and quality of muga silk. Muga cocoons are reeled on motorised muga silk reeling machine. Electrical hot air stifling has shown superior reeling performance in comparison to smoke stifled and sun dried cocoons. The study has shown that raw silk recovery from electrically hot air stifled cocoons is significantly high in comparison to flame-smoke-sun stifling with a gain of about 6.37%. Similarly there is gradual decline in raw silk recovery (RSR) percentage with increase in storage period of muga cocoon. Thus, RSR has declined by 14.32% in course of 6 months of cocoon storage. Tenacity is found higher in October crop (average 3.36 g/den), while it is average 2.83 g/den in crop of May month. Muga raw silk yarn has lost elongation with extended storage of yarn. In fresh muga raw silk yarn, elongation is found 37.55%, while in one year old stored muga raw silk yarn elongation has come down to 33.02%. Thus, the study recommends stifling muga cocoon by hot air stifling for four hours. Cocoon preservation time needs to be minimized and muga silk yarn of October (Kotia) crop with high tenacity should be used as warp yarn in weaving.