Panchmarhi growers plan to produce golden yellow silk

About 350 km from Indore, Panchmarhi is best known for its natural beauty and tourist potential. But that may change soon with local entreprenuers exploring the possibility of growing 'golden yellow silk'.

The town is likely to become second production centre for the fabric in the world after Assam, where it is cultivated in small quantities.

Around 5,000 som plants from which the yarn is prepared, are being cultivated in a local nursery's green house at the behest of the Hoshangabad district officer, Rajkesh Kumar Shrivastava. The seeds have been brought from Assam.

Pramod Pathak, the district field officer, said, "We have begun germinating the som seeds and the plants should be mature in about two years. Attempts to produce a silk variety from this plant have failed in various countries. However, a strong probability of producing the rare golden yellow silk exist in Pachmarhi because of favourable atmosphere and soil."

Pathak added that once the som plants mature, muga silk worms will be procured from Assam for developing the yarn. A muga breeding centre will also be developed here on the line sof the existing mulberry centre here, he said.

So far, the local silk centre has been producing mulberry, eri and tussar silk varieties. An eri breeding centre is located in Pipariya, while there is tussar breeding centre at Sukatawa in Itarsi district in Madhya Pradesh.

Earlier, thread was sent to Karnataka and West Bengal for weaving. However, since 2000-2001, silk fabric is being woven at Maheshwar in Khargone district.

Mulberry trees have been cultivated on 550 acres of land, while Arandi trees for eri silk and saja and arjun trees for tussar silk were being cultivated on 1,600 and 2,500 acres respectively.