Sericulture pupal waste - A new production medium for mass cultivation of Bacillus thuringiensis

An attempt has been made to utilize the silkworm pupal waste for mass cultivation of biopesticide bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis. The mass production potential was tested in a semi solid state fermentation set-up and the dry pupal waste powder was analyzed for carbon, lipid, protein and pH before and after solid state fermentation, where viable spore count (VSC) was taken as a criteria for evaluating the efficiency of pupal waste medium. A very high VSC of 369x10⁹ was obtained in the present investigation.