Rong, a native of the northwestern Chinese province of Shanxi, worked in genetic breeding and tissue research at a cotton research institute in China for six years before coming to study in the United States. If the ovules sank, fiber production ceased. The new method involves actually submerging the seeds in the liquid, which produces fibers very similar to those grown on the living plant. Brown said he hopes that some day it will be possible to produce a fiber product that has better quality and more diverse traits for yarn and textile production. Brown said the new submerged ovule culture technique has the potential to show researchers how the cellulose walls of cotton fibers could be made stronger.
Fibers grown in submerged culture often are smaller in diameter and have thicker cell walls.
The result is the laboratory production of cotton fibers that may have unique traits worthy of further investigation. Some of these fibers grown in submerged culture have characteristic helical thickenings of secondary cell walls. Brown said such cells might have important new properties such as greater strength, greater plasticity and could have the potential to alter and improve textiles and specialty cotton products, with major implications for the Texas economy. Brown said this also would be important for yarn and textile production. Using the submerged cotton ovule technique, we have the ability to investigate how the world's finest cotton is produced.