Author
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Brushwood, Donald |
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Submitted to: National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 3/10/2000 Publication Date: 6/1/2000 Citation: Brushwood, D.E. Relationship of individual honeydew sugar concentrations on cotton lint stickiness potential and measured sugar content. Proceedings of the Beltwide Cotton Conference, National Cotton Council, Memphis, TN. 2000. p. 1518-1522. Interpretive Summary: Cotton stickiness has been a concern to many textile processors worldwide. Other than man-induced contamination from machinery, oils and chemicals, the major sources of stickiness are from sugars on the cotton plant itself and insect honeydew. Honeydew is a highly sticky sap-like excretion from whiteflies and aphids that are deposited on open cotton bolls in the field. .When contamination from these sugars on harvested cotton exceed certain thresholds, stickiness can cause a number of processing problems. This is especially true with current trends to increase processing speeds. When broken down into individual carbohydrates, plant and honeydew sugars have been found to contain varying amount of different sugars. The stickiness potential of several of the most common sugars found on insect: and non- insect contaminated cotton lint was determined. Authentic sugars were sprayed on the surface of a non-insect and low plant sugar cotton at different concentrations. Subsequent tests correlated the sugar found on the of the surface of the cottons with physical stickiness as measured by the standard thermodetector (TD) and minicards test. Sugars identified as exclusive to insect honeydew were found to exhibit higher potential to be sticky than traditional plant sugars especially at higher concentration levels. Technical Abstract: Cotton fiber stickiness caused by the presence of sugars can not only depend upon the total amount of sugars, but which specific ones are present. Studies were conducted to measure the stickiness potential of seven sugars commonly found in honeydew cottons. A single upland cotton was treated with pre-determined amounts of these sugars by misting with an air brush applicator. Resultant treatments were analyzed for sugar content to determine actual sugar retention. Stickiness measurements were conducted on blended and unblended treatment samples to determine degrees of stickiness at five different sugar concentrations. The characteristic honeydew sugars trehalulose and melezitose as well as the disaccharides turnanose and sucrose were found to exhibit higher stickiness potential on the thermodetector than other sugars tested, especially at concentrations above 0.5%. Sucrose treated cottons did not get as high a stickiness rating on the minicard as with the thermodetector stickiness tests. |
