Cotton Quality and Fiber Properties
Authors: Wakeham Helmut 
Published: March 2008

Several years ago "irrigated cottons" were discounted under comparable grades and staples of raingrown cottons because of the widespread belief that the processing characteristics of the irrigated cottons were inferior to the normal raingrown cottons. Since Textile Research Institute was engaged in a broad program of relating cotton fiber properties with processing behavior and product quality, it seemed reasonable to include in this program an investigation of whether or not any fundamental differ ences between raingrown and irrigated cottons exist.

As examples of these two types of cotton, seven bales each of Mississippi raingrown Deltapine 15 cotton and California irrigated Acala 4-42 cotton from the 1951 crop were processed into yarns and fabrics of standard constructions. Conventional fiber tests and tests for single-fiber mechanical properties indicated the cottons were alike in all properties except the energy required to uncrimp the fibers, which was consistently higher for the irrigated cotton. Conventional chemical tests also revealed the irrigated cotton to have a higher wax content, yield a larger ash, and have a lower degree of polymerization.

Definite processing superiority and slightly better product quality were observed for the raingrown cotton in the processing comparison. These differences may be attributed to the lower uncrimping energy for the raingrown cotton or to its different surface characteristics, as manifested by its lower wax and ash contents. From a practical point of view, however, no fundamental, deep-seated difference could be observed between the raingrown and irrigated samples in this test. Most probably, with slight processing organization adjustments, the differences observed in the me chanical processing characteristics of these two cottons would become insignificant.

1 This report describes a portion of the work carried out in a broad program relating cotton fiber properties with processing behavior and product quality. A part of this pro gram has been performed under contract with the U.S. De partment of Agriculture and authorized by the Research and Marketing Act. The contract was supervised by the South ern Regional Research Laboratory, Southern Utilization Re search Branch, Agricultural Research Service. Although the examples used in the present phase of this program were a matched pair of raingrown and irrigated cottons, the conclu sions expressed herein by the author regarding the relative merits of raingrown and irrigated cottons, are not necessarily held or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

2 Present address : Ahmedabad Textile Industry's Research Association, Ahmedabad, India.

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