Studies on fibre quality of a long staple cotton variety using high volume instrument and advanced fibre information system for fibre quality improvement

Abstract

Fibre quality parameters of 20 plants of a long staple cotton variety Suraj were analyzed using High Volume Instrument (HVI) and Advanced Fibre Information System (AFIS) and were compared. From AFIS data, narrow range of coefficient of variability (of less than 10 %) was noticed in characters like length (by weight), upper quartile length (by weight), length (by number), 5 % length (by number), fineness (mtex), maturity ratio and fibre neps. Comparatively larger extent of variability was noticed (of more than 10 %) for short fibre content (both by weight and by number), immature fibre content, fibre neps – count/g, seed coat neps – count/g and for seed coat neps – mean size. However, the coefficient of variability for 2.5 % span length (mm), uniformity ratio (%), micronaire (μg/inch) and tenacity at 3.2 mm gauge (g/tex) was low when the fibre quality data was generated in HVI. This shows that variability estimates were narrow in the selected plants when fibre quality was analysed in HVI and exposes inherent weakness in analysing the fibre quality with HVI in breeders’ perspective. Correlation coefficients between immature fibre content and short fibre content, both by number (r = 0.89) and by weight (r = 0.84) were very high indicating that by reducing short fibre content the immature fibre content can be reduced drastically. Further, the correlation between immature fibre content and tenacity at 3.2 mm gauge was negative and was high (-0.91). Plants with ideal combination of yield and fibre quality parameters were identified for further exploitation.