Fiber damage related to maturity and processing

Abstract

<abstract> <bold>Abstract.</bold> A study was conducted over three years where experimental field treatments were composed of two cotton cultivars with half of each cultivar defoliated early and half late to get two fiber maturities per cultivar. Each field treatment was ginned with four ginning treatments and then spun into yarn. Fiber properties were measured by the High Volume Instrument (HVI) and Advanced Fiber Information System (AFIS) and yarn properties were also measured including tenacity, spinnability index, yarn strength, and yarn evenness. Data were examined to determine the relationships between fiber maturity, ginning treatments, and yarn properties. Analysis of the HVI measurements showed that differences existed in Micronaire, fiber length, short fiber, fiber strength, fiber elongation, sample color, and trash levels correlated with the field and ginning treatments. The AFIS measurements showed that there were significant differences in fiber maturity, length, short fiber, and neps correlated with the treatments. The mill cleaning reduced the differences in neps before spinning but did not eliminate the differences due to reduced fiber maturity from early defoliation. The yarn evenness was found to vary in relation to the defoliation and HVI measurements of short fiber, sample color, Micronaire and trash levels were correlated with the evenness variations. Lower yarn evenness was not found to be correlated with the ginning treatments.