Original Articles
IMPROVEMENT OF WOOL QUALITY BY SELECTIVE BREEDING
IN BIKANERI AND LOHI SHEEP
By P. N. NANDA, M.R.C.V.S. AND GURBAX SINGH, L.V.P. Govt. Livestock Farm, Hissar
(Received for publication on 9 July 1948)
Q UALITY in wool is a vague term. It is intended to indicate a combination of certain characters
like medullation, length, fineness, strength and elasticity etc., which help to improve the
spinning quality of the fibres ultimately affecting the merits of the finished cloth. Most of our Indian
breeds of sheep produce only the carpet class of wool i.e., a mixture of varying proportions of wool
and hair. The presence of hair (technically known as medullated fibres) is a major defect in wool as
it prevents its use for the manufacture of good clothing material in comparison to Merino and Cross
bred wools which are either totally free from medullation or show only a slight amount of hairiness.
The presence of hair in wool reduces its spinning quality, gives roughness to the cloth, is weaker in
tensile strength and does not take up the dyes. Any attempt to improve the quality of Indian wool
must primarily include the elimination or reduction of hair in the fleece. Medullation in wool has
been found to be highly correlated to fineness, strength and handle of wool, thereby indicating that
improvement in medullation alone will greatly affect the quality of Indian wools.
With the partition of the country, the problem of making the Indian Union self-sufficient as
regards its requirements of various types of wool has assumed greater importance. To achieve the
object in view, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, has recently drawn up a plan for the
production of various types of wool, both by grading up with the Merino and by selective breeding
of some of the indigenous breeds. The plan for selective breeding is based on the work done at Hissar.
While going through a large number of fleece samples of Bikaneri and Lohi sheep in the wool
analysis laboratory at the Hissar Farm, it was noticed that there was wide variation, ranging from
a purely woolly fleece to a totally hairy type. It was, therefore, felt that the evolution of a clothing
type of sheep should not be impossible. Accordingly, the improvement of fleece quality by selective
breeding was started in both the breeds in the year 1943-44. In the course of about five years, it
has been noticed that with the help of an improved system of judging the fleece quality and resorting
to judicious selection, an appreciable improvement in the fleece quality of the flocks can be affected.
TESTING OF FLEECES AND FIXING OF QUALITY STANDARDS
As a pre-requisite to improving the quality of wool, an accurate method for the testing of indivi-
dual fleeces and laying down some quality standards was considered essential. It had already been
experienced that assessment of fleece quality by feel was an unreliable method and often led to in-
correct results. Some standard laboratory method was, therefore, necessary to fulfil this requirement.
This was accomplished by adopting the ' rapid benzol test ' described by Nanda, Singh and Mongre-
[1946]. Small representative samples were taken from the shoulder region of each sheep and tested
in the wool laboratory for the percentage of medullation in the fleece. This method afforded satisfac-
tory results for the purpose in view.
Quality standards of foreign wools are well known in the trade, but India produces mostly coarse
type of wool for which there are no suitable standards. Any type of coarse or fine wool, irrespective
of its utility value in the manufacturing process, is classed as a carpet wool. Certain arbitrary standards
were laid down for use in the present work. To fix up these working standards, a large number of
Bikaneri and Lohi sheep were first surveyed for the quality of wool on medullation basis, and it was
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