Fiber and Yarn Properties Improve with New Cotton Cultivar

Mill modernization and global market requirements necessitates the continual improvement of upland cotton, Gossypium hirustum L., cultivars. Recent focus by breeders is to create upland cotton with superior fiber quality that approaches pima cotton, Gossypium barbadense L. The objective of this study was to perform in-depth analysis of fibers produced by 'FM832' and 'MD51neOK' and their progeny, 'MD15', that express transgressive segregation for fiber bundle strength. Results were generated via the Stelometer, Peyer AL101, Fibro-graph, HVI (TM), AFIS, Favimat, Fiber Dimensional Analysis System (FDAS) 765, and miniature spinning. Single fiber strength and fineness testing was performed using the Favimat, whereas the FDAS 765 performed non-contact dimensional analysis along the fiber length. Traditional fiber bundle testing was compared to single fiber testing and miniature spinning yarn testing. Cottons in this study were broken at different loading rates from 0.3 cm/min for the Stelometer, 2 cm/min for the Favimat, 13.6 cm/min for the HVI (TM), and 25.4 cm/min for the Statimat-M, with respective progeny fiber or yarn strengths of 32, 32, 41, and 27 g/tex. Progeny fineness along with fiber and yarn strengths improved in MD15 compared with its parents with lower yarn hairiness values. The MD15 progeny "super cotton" displayed better quality fiber and yarn properties when tested under a wide range of conditions.