ABSTRACT

A group of modern commercial cottons were selected to be grown, harvested, and processed to test their suitability for high performance spinning. A total of twenty-one lots were studied comprising cottons grown in one of three locations in either Georgia, Mississippi, or Texas. Results reported here emphasized the maturity of these cottons and compared several different methods of measuring maturity. Two of the cultivars, Fibermax-832 and -966, were grown in all three locations during the 2000 season. While studying the utility of different fiber property measurements in determining suitability for spinning, we emphasized how the average values of fiber maturity, as well as their distributions, varied with growing location. Instrumentation utilized here to measure average micronaire, fineness, and maturity included the HVI, AFIS, and Micromat F/MT. Image analysis of microscopic fiber cross-sections was utilized to determine the average values and distributions of fiber wall area, perimeter, and degree of thickening (θ).