National Cotton Council of America
Beltwide Cotton Conferences
January 8-11, 2008
Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center
Nashville, Tennessee
The Cotton Foundation

Recorded Presentations

Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 2:35 PM

FIAS Longitudinal Measurements Modified - More Accurate Cotton Fiber Maturity

Patricia D. Bel1, Bugao Xu2, and X. Yao2. (1) Southern Regional Research Center,ARS, USDA, 1100 Robert E. Lee Blvd., New Orleans, LA 70124, (2) The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station Stop A2700, Austin, TX 78712

A projected 2-D image of a cotton fiber has large variations in fiber width due to the convolutions along the longitudinal axes. The ratio of the maximum width to the minimum width of a fiber ribbon could be used as a maturity indicator. Another important factor related to cotton maturity is fibers translucence. The translucence, as seen with a transmitting light microscope, is dictated by the thickness of the secondary cell wall. This paper will report the new developments of FIAS (Fiber Image Analysis System), which identifies the translucent fibers as immature and then follows the entire skeleton and identifies the whole fiber as immature. In the previous version of FIAS, the dark sections of the fiber were identified as mature (sometimes due to reversals and viewing the fiber's twists on it's side due to the convolutions). Since a fiber's maturity is generally consistent through the length of the fiber, the FIAS program was modified and the new version now corrects for that.  The maturity data from both versions are compared to the levels of white specks in the dyed fabrics. FIAS has fast sample preparation and data processing and therefore has great potential to be regularly used for cotton maturity, especially for breeding programs.