Skip to main content
ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Cotton Structure and Quality Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #220753
Title: HIGH VOLUME MEASUREMENTS OF COTTON MATURITY BY A CUSTOMIZED MICROSCOPIC SYSTEM

Author
item XU, B - UNIV TEXAS AT AUSTIN
item YAO, X - UNIV TEXAS AT AUSTIN
item Bel, Patricia
item HEQUEST, E - TEXAS TECH UNIV
item WYATT, B - TEXAS TECH UNIV

Submitted to: Textile Research Journal
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/8/2008
Publication Date: 7/1/2009
Citation: Xu, B., Yao, X., Bel, P., Hequest, E., Wyatt, B. 2009. HIGH VOLUME MEASUREMENTS OF COTTON MATURITY BY A CUSTOMIZED MICROSCOPIC SYSTEM. Textile Research Journal. 79(10):937-946

Interpretive Summary: Information about cotton maturity is desirable to cotton breeders and growers for cotton enhancement and to textile manufacturers for quality control. This paper will report on the technical development of a customized microscopic imaging system, FIAS (Fiber Image Analysis System), for direct, fast and high-volume measurements of cotton maturity from longitudinal views and the experiment results. Fiber maturity is measured using ribbon width and fiber density. It reports on the experimental results of the 102 cotton bales selected worldwide to represent a wide range of cotton maturity. This new measurement system has great potential to be regularly used for cotton maturity measurements because of its high efficiency in sample preparation and data processing. In combination with the micronaire, and predicting Theta, this is a method that is much faster than the reference method (fiber cross-section), making this a useful tool for testing cottons for breeding programs.

Technical Abstract: Information about cotton maturity is desirable to cotton breeders and growers for cotton enhancement and to textile manufacturers for quality control. Cotton maturity, which refers to the degree of development of the fiber wall relative to its perimeter, directly or indirectly affects most of the other cotton fiber properties. Mature fibers usually possess greater strength and better resilience whereas, immature fibers easily tangle and break during processing causing high levels of neps, and short fibers that ultimately lower yarn strength and uniformity. Due to their relatively low dye affinity, neps easily show up as imperfections known as white specks in a dyed fabric. This paper reports on the development of a dedicated system that facilitates direct, fast and high-volume measurements of cotton maturity from longitudinal views, and the experimental results. A projected 2-D image of a cotton fiber has large variations in fiber width due to convolutions along the longitudinal axes. Because of the relationship between fiber convolutions and fiber maturity, our hypothesis is that the ratio of the maximum width to the minimum width of a fiber ribbon could be used as a maturity indicator. Another important factor related to cotton maturity is fibers translucence because the translucence with a transmitting light microscope is dictated by the thickness of the secondary cell wall. This paper describes the methodology for extracting these features and how they relate to cotton maturity.