ANN ARBOR — Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc. (OTC: KBLB) this week announced a long-term lease on property in Texas upon which it will plant 2,000 mulberry trees — eventually creating the food for its genetically engineered silkworms to create its proprietary “spider silk.”
The company expects to see an improvement in materials performance and a reduction in production costs by as much as 30 percent through the use of locally sourced mulberry.
“Signing this lease and opening this new facility brings with it a new era for Kraig Labs and silk production in the U.S.,” said COO Jon Rice. “Establishing domestic mulberry production has long been a key piece of our growth plan, today we are pleased to be able share the success of our efforts in bringing that vision into reality. Over the coming months we will complete the planting of the first 2,000 trees and prepare the facility for the next phase of expansion.”
This property offers the company significant capacity for growth with room for tens of thousands of more trees.
Mulberry leaves are the preferred food for domesticated silkworms. After they finish the larval stage of their development — eating at times their body weight in mulberry leaves in a day — silkworms spin a cocoon that are harvested and unwound as silk. The cocoons are made of a single thread of raw silk that can be up to 3,000 feet long. The fibers are lustrous and almost microscopically fine — around 0.0004 inches in diameter.
Kraig’s silkworms have been genetically modified with several spider genes, so that the silk they spin has some of the same incredible strength and toughness as spiderwebs.
For more information about Spider Silk, visit www.kraiglabs.com/spider-silk.