Question

How is silk extracted from cocoons

Answer 1

• When the silk worm forms a covering around itself by secreting a protein through its head, this is called the cocoon stage. This is the most desirable stage for the silk producers. It is at this time that the cocoons are delivered to the factory by the farmer. These factories are called filature operations.
• Once the cocoons reach the filature operations they are sorted by color, size, shape and texture. They usually range from white and yellow to grayish.
• After the cocoons have been sorted, they have to be boiled in water, while they are still intact, for 5 minutes while they are being turned gently. They are then taken out of the water and a dissecting needle is used to start picking up the strands. Once a single strand is found that will come off easily it has to be wound around a pencil. This is how the cocoon is loosened so that it can be unwound in 1 continuous thread, which are collected into skeins. The process is called “reeling.”



• Since the thread is too fine for commercial use, between 3 and 10 strands then have to be reeled together to produce the desired diameter of raw silk. This is known as “reeled silk.” It will take 3,000 cocoons to make just 1 pound of this type of silk.

Answer 2

Answer:

The process of silk production is known as sericulture. The entire production process of silk can be divided into several steps which are typically handled by different entities. Extracting raw silk starts by cultivating the silkworms on mulberry leaves. Once the worms start pupating in their cocoons, these are dissolved in boiling water in order for individual long fibres to be extracted and fed into the spinning reel.

Explanation: