Practical Skills, Field/Lab Work and Record Keeping
Domain focus
Practical skills, field and lab work, and record keeping test whether a learner can perform routine sericulture tasks and document them accurately. The exam values correct units, dates, observations and simple calculations.
Core rules and concepts
- Maintain a field diary for mulberry: date, operation, fertilizer, irrigation, pest incidence and leaf harvest.
- Maintain a rearing record for each batch: DFL source, brushing date, temperature and humidity, leaf fed, bed cleaning, mortality, mounting date and cocoon yield.
- In the laboratory, label slides and samples, clean the microscope, and record magnification and observations. For pebrine examination, prepare a mother-moth smear and examine for spores.
- Use correct units: leaf in kg, temperature in °C, humidity in %, cocoon yield in kg per DFL, renditta as kg/kg.
- Calculate percentages and ratios from raw records, and keep original sheets so results can be checked.
Worked example
A batch is brushed with 10,000 larvae. By the third instar, 400 larvae have died. Mortality = 400 ÷ 10,000 × 100 = 4%. If 8,000 cocoons are finally harvested, rearing survival = 8,000 ÷ 10,000 × 100 = 80%. Reasoning: both percentages use the same initial larval number, but one measures early loss and the other measures survival to harvest.
Traps that cost marks
Recording estimates as measured values; mixing dates and units; losing original sheets; calculating survival on cocoon weight; failing to label slides; not recording control measures.