In new areas of sericulture, due to non-awareness about chawki concept, the farmers often are unable to chop required size leaf with knife and often feed entire leaf from the day of brushing which affect proper distribution of food and results in unequal growth of the larvae. The motorized leaf chopping machine developed by Central Sericultural Research & Training Institute, Mysore is rather useful for big farmers and commercial chawki rearing centres. Hence, to cater to the needs of medium and small farmers, a hand operated leaf-chopping machine has been fabricated, which is handy and economical. It is available in two and three blade options with locking system (Fig.1). The machine weighs 2.5 kg with a height of 35 cm, wheel diameter of 27 cm and blade size of 11 cm. The machine can chop one kg leaves in five minutes in different sizes for different stages of silkworm (Fig.2). Three blade machine chops ribbon type leaves required for covering while two blade machine gives 1-1.5 cm sq size leaves that can be fed to second instar larvae.
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