In sericulture industry, rearing is the most important and critical phase. Silkworm rearing depends upon the prevailing climatic conditions of the place of rearing, availability of essential facilities/ materials like food plants, rearing house, appliances, equipments, etc. The eri silkworm is reared indoors and can be reared five to six times all through the year subject to availability of food plants. Unlike other silkworms, eri silkworm rearing is simple and does not require high skill. Eri silkworms (Samia ricini Donovan) are hardy and less susceptible to diseases.

Eri silkworm is a polyphagous insect. It feeds on a number of host plants, among those castor and kesseru are considered as primary and tapioca, payam etc. as secondary hostplants. Systematic plantation of castor, kesseru and tapioca following recommended package of practices ensures availability of sufficient leaves for silkworm rearing in large scale, which results into many fold increase of eri cocoon production.

Chawki rearing is the rearing of first two instars of silkworm under healthy and hygienic condition. The object of chawki rearing is to ensure healthy batch of vigrorous growing silkworms that will spin successful cocoon crops in later stages with minimum of loss due to diseases.

Mulberry is the food plant for silkworm, Bombyx mori ,and hence its improvement in the quality and quantity of leaf per unit area and their commercialization at farmers level is a pre-requisite for sericulture development. A major factor is the maximization of leaf yield of mulberry per unit area will lead to increased cocoon production. Hence a package of practices comprising of the various aspects of mulberry cultivation viz spacing, planting season, method of planting, irrigation, manuring, pruning etc is discussed below  for different agro-climatic conditions and topography of the area with an aim to maximize leaf yield output.