silk worms

[asly]

Has anyone ever tried raising silk worms, and processing their cocoons on a hobby size scale? Just wondering... []

Enjoy the day! Ann

[Carey]

If you haven't check with the Dept of Ag. yet, that would be my first suggestion... they are not native, and the DOA may nix the idea (although there are some safegaurds with silk worms.... they still may not be allowed in...) And they may require permits & such that make a hobby worm farm costly
Link:
http://hawaii.gov/hdoa/pi/pq/import

[Hotzcatz]

http://blogs.starbulletin.com/fashiontri...ool-today/

There are folks raising silkworms on Oahu, they may have a few for you to try raising. I'm working on angora fiber, it might be nice to mix that with a bit of silk. You may want to plant a mulberry tree before getting very many silkworms, though, since they eat mulberry leaves.

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"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson

[asly]

Thanks for the info! I've read about raising them before for hobby, back when the kiddo wanted to do something different for FFA. However lack of mulberry in our area was a prob, even though I guess you can purchase dehydrated mulberry. We planned to try to do a small batch through one lifecycle just to see how it was worked and to process it.... then she lost interest... teenagers ;-)

Would be interesting to mix angora with silk!

Enjoy the day! Ann

[Hotzcatz]

One of the other people on the island with angoras is doing just that. He's mixing it almost 50/50 angora/silk so the finished yarn won't work up into things that are quite so warm. Angora, other than being incredibly soft, is also incredibly warm.

I think you can get mulberry trees from Plant-it-Hawaii, if not there, somewhere locally at least. Mulberries are pretty good for jams and pies, too, so you can feed the leaves to the silkworms and save the berries for your own use.

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"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson

[csgray]

Does anyone know where I could get starts for the paper mulberry used for making kapa? Only the males are traditionally grown in the Pacific, so I am looking for cuttings or rooted starts.

Carol

[ChicEco]

Incredible luxury fiber potentials here. RE silk worms, I'd like to know who sells them. Great info on http://www.aurorasilk.com/silkworms/silk...s2010.html, but she (Cheryl in OR) does not ship to HI. Mulberry bushes grow great in my Pahoa region & Cheryl tells me there are worm farmers on Big Isle. She's been too busy to search & advise me of who they are, so I hope to be informed here. For inclusion in my database as an earth-friendly goods supplier with wholesale terms, HI people are invited to complete and submit the Chic Eco form on www.chiceco.com/index.php?b=Get_Listed. It is free of charge.

BTW, there use to be a distributor in NYC that sold beautiful sweaters mixed w/silk and angora. Think it was called Catagora w/ raw fibers from Thailand or India, but the biz dissolved.

Delia Montgomery
d/b/a Chic Eco
Environmental Fashion & Design ~ Consultant & Broker
www.ChicEco.com
Become a yurt blog follower! See http://chiceco-yurtliving.blogspot.com/

[peteadams]

quote:

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Does anyone know where I could get starts for the paper mulberry used for making kapa? Only the males are traditionally grown in the Pacific, so I am looking for cuttings or rooted starts.

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We recently visited the Amy Greenwell garden in Kona and asked this very question as we are interested in acquiring more of the culturally important native plants rather than just the ornamentals. However their knowledgeable gardener discouraged that a bit, especially for Puna, because the wauke spreads so readily. He said we should be prepared to devote a large area to even a single planting. It sounds much like aspens spreading to form an grove by underground roots.

Edited...it's the Amy Greenwell Garden

[csgray]

Interesting, I had read that they are listed as invasive by seed on the mainland, but had not read that they were invasive from cuttings. I really want to eventually work with making Kapa and the raw material is hard to come by, so I wanted to grow my own. I am surprised it spreads like that, since it doesn't seem to have held over at the sites of former Hawaiian villages. We have the room, and would be harvesting branches to make kapa by coppicing the tree. I've been meaning to go visit the Greenwell gardens to talk about a class field trip anyway, I guess I have another reason now. They do list the plant for sale on their website, though.

Carol

[peteadams]

The person at the Greenwell garden was just cautionary. The area we would have planted the wauke is moist and we would not have been harvesting it. If you are actually going to use the plant, then you probably have more than enough control. There should not be any difference in invasiveness in the same plant from seed or cutting.