This section contains news item collected from various web sources in the preceding week. This presents an opportunity to understand the technology trends and opportunities in a particular field.
General
India's Kalam points RI toward science and technology
Irawaty Wardany, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta: November 22, 2007
Former Indian president AJP Abdul Kalam shared at a science conference in Indonesia on Tuesday his country's experiences and successes integrating science and technology with economic growth.
Kalam said he wanted to share his experiences with the republic and its scientists because, "there are many similarities between Indonesia and India in terms of ethnic, religious, language and cultural diversity".
Speaking at the 9 th National Congress of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), he said under his leadership India had identified five core competency areas.
These areas included agriculture and food processing; education and health care; information and communication technology; infrastructure; and self-reliance in basic technologies.
He said all areas were inter-related and had to be moved in a coordinated way. "During my presidency, I evolved a system called Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Area (PURA)," Kalam said. "PURA is a system that (involves a) well-balanced habitat that can be cherished for great bio-diversity and greenery. "It involves growth of local talent, with the addition of technology and above all the potential of large-scale value-added employment generation."
He said PURA's byproduct was "a minimized migration from rural to urban areas and promoted reverse migration".
Kalam said there were four types of PURA: plain terrain PURA, hill PURA, coastal PURA and desert PURA.
"Indonesia may have to design and develop more coastal and plain terrain PURA."
He said plain terrain and coastal PURA might be in a region of 20,000 to 100,000 populations or a cluster of 20 to 30 villages. Each PURA cluster he said would emphasize agro-processing, development of rural craftsmanship, dairy, silk production and fishing, as well as fish processing for coastline regions.
"This will enhance the non-farm revenue for the rural sector, based on the competitive advantage of the region," Kalam said. "It is also essential that the rural economy be driven by renewable energies such as solar, wind and bio-fuel, along with the conversion of municipal waste into power."
Kalam said with these approaches, the core competencies in the rural sector would be harnessed for sustainable development of the economy as a whole. "India's economy is now growing with an annual GDP of 8 to 9 percent.
"Very soon, we will be reaching the target of 10 percent GDP growth rate," he said.
The conference was officially opened by Vice President Jusuf Kalla
http://www.thejakartapost.com
Emerson to digitally automate innovative recycling and energy recovery plant for Syctom in France
November 21, 2007: Emerson's PlantWeb© digital plant architecture will enable the plant to comfortably meet the latest stringent European standards for emissions
AUSTIN, TEXAS (November 21, 2007) - Emerson Process Management has been awarded a contract to digitally automate one of Europe's most innovative recycling and energy recovery plants being built by Syctom on the banks of the River Seine in Paris. Emerson will install PlantWeb digital plant architecture with FOUNDATION fieldbus technology for the major project that will recycle refuse from 1.1 million Paris residents, converting the waste into energy.
Syctom recognized the value of Emerson's knowledge and experience gained from similar large capital projects and awarded the contract following a rigorous vetting procedure. Emerson's PlantWeb digital plant architecture met Syctom's vision to install the most modern automation and control system available today. The cost and time savings that PlantWeb provides during installation, and the operational benefits that are enabled, made it the first choice for this high profile installation.
The project has been designed to be a technological showcase with special consideration being given to integrating the building into the surrounding environment. Two thirds of the building will be underground to minimize the impact on the local community and there will be no steam plume or chimneys. In addition, no industrial water will be discharged into the Seine.
"There have been many environmental issues to be addressed, in particular the sensitive area of emissions," said Dominique Coutart, Project Director, Syctom. "Emerson's PlantWeb architecture and the innovative design of the plant will ensure that emissions will be significantly lower than the stringent levels required by the latest European regulations."
Emerson's Rosemount Analytical instruments will be used for the continuous monitoring of the emissions to ensure that the plant meets all the required criteria, this includes levels for dioxins, cadmium and sulphur dioxide. Sophisticated treatment equipment will guarantee that smoke emissions will be less than 50% of the European limit.
"This is a highly imaginative scheme that uses the best technologies to recover and recycle waste in a sensitive and densely populated area," said David Dunbar, president of Emerson Process Management in Europe. "Emerson's class leading technologies have been specified for the critical continuous monitoring of the emissions and we are delighted that Syctom has recognized the benefits that Emerson's PlantWeb based control and automation will provide during installation and later, when the plant is fully operational."
The installation is based on Emerson's PlantWeb digital plant architecture, with a DeltaV™ digital control system and FOUNDATION fieldbus communications technology with 65 segments and over 500 intelligent devices from several vendors. These include Rosemount© pressure, flow, level and temperature instruments, and Fisher© control valves with Fisher FIELDVUE© digital valve controllers as well as the Rosemount Analytical analysers.
By using a solution based on FOUNDATION fieldbus, it has been possible to significantly reduce the space required for the control room footprint, thereby freeing this space for other uses. For example, a conventional wired system would have required up to 30 control cabinets but this will be reduced to just five with the simplified wiring and reduced hardware required by the FOUNDATION fieldbus network.
Emerson will also be providing AMS™ Suite: Intelligent Device Manager predictive maintenance software, which will give operators data from the FOUNDATION fieldbus devices on the network. AMS Device Manager will make configuration and commissioning of the devices easier, contributing to faster start up of the plant. When the plant is operational, AMS Device Manager will provide online access to instrument and valve diagnostics allowing problems to be resolved before they affect plant operations.
Replacing an existing plant, the new facility will be constructed at Issy Les Moulineaux in the suburbs of Paris and will recover and sort the domestic rubbish from 1.1 million residents. It has the annual capacity to convert 460,000 tons of domestic waste into energy as well as being able to sort and recycle 55,000 tons of domestic packaging and large objects.
Hi-Res Photo is available.
About Emerson Process Management
Emerson Process Management (www.EmersonProcess.com), an Emerson business, is a leader in helping businesses automate their production, processing and distribution in the chemical, oil and gas, refining, pulp and paper, power, water and wastewater treatment, food and beverage, pharmaceutical and other industries. The company combines superior products and technology with industry-specific engineering, consulting, project management and maintenance services. Its brands include PlantWeb©, Fisher©, Micro Motion©, Rosemount©, Mobrey©, Daniel©, Bristol©, DeltaV™, Ovation©, and AMS™ Suite.
About Emerson
Emerson, based in St. Louis, is a global leader in bringing technology and engineering together to provide innovative solutions to customers through its network power, process management, industrial automation, climate technologies, and appliance and tools businesses. Sales in fiscal 2007 were $ 22.6 billion. For more information, visit www.Emerson.com.
http://news.easydeltav.com
Arecanut dehusker addresses labour shortage problems
Priced at Rs. 2,650, the unit can dehusk about 160 kg of nuts in a day
Crowd puller: Arecanut dehusker being demonstrated to farmers during Krishimela held in Bangalore.
Labour requirement is an important component in agriculture. Unlike in the West, in our country, most of the agricultural practices are still being carried out with the help of manual labourers.
With the influx of a number of rural workers into urban areas in search of jobs and other opportunities, shortage of labour is a major problem which almost every village and farmer faces, especially during the harvest season.
Warmly welcomed
Against this backdrop, development of any new agriculture related machinery which could fill the gap of labour shortage and at the same time, if affordable by small farmers is warmly welcomed.
Against this background, researchers at the Post Harvest Technology Centre, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, have developed a semi-mechanised pedal operated arecanut dehusker to meet the dehusking requirement of areca nut growers.
Arecanut is an important cash crop of India. About 90 per cent of arecanut cultivation is concentrated in Karnataka, Kerala and Assam.
The tree is mainly grown for its nuts which are commonly called as supari in Hindi and ‘pakku’ and ‘seeval’ in Tamil.
The nut is usually chewed with betel leaf and a little lime. Once the areca fruits are plucked from the trees manual workers remove the nut from the fruits using a knife and then cut it into small pieces.
Another process called curing involves fresh fruits with husk (less ripe) are soaked in flowing water for some period. The process helps in loosening the husk which is plucked by hand and the nut removed.
The remaining husk over the nut is scraped with the help of a sharp knife.
Owing to various research and development efforts undertaken in the past three decades, arecanut production has now reached self sufficiency.
Processing cost
Studies made with respect to the cost of processing of arecanut to remove the nuts have revealed that about 35-40 per cent of the total cost of processing is spent for dehusking arecanut alone, which of course, is generally done by farm workers particularly women, according to Dr. B. Ranganna, Professor & Research Engineer, Post Harvest Technology Centre, University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Gandhi Krishi Vigyan Kendra (GKVK), Bangalore. The machine can be operated by employing four persons to dehusk arecanuts simultaneously.
The assembly
The dehusking assembly consists of two sharp edged flaps, one being stationary and the other movable, operated by the pedal through a linkage mechanism. The unit has a hopper to hold about 20 kg of arecanuts.
Made of mild steel, the entire unit is mounted on an angle iron stand and the dehusking mechanism is made of spring steel.
“This is suitable for dehusking freshly harvested mature green arecanuts of all varieties under cultivation,” said Dr. Ranganna. The dehusking capacity of the unit is 160 kg per day with a running time of eight hours and the unit is priced at Rs.2,650 (does not include packaging and forwarding charges).
This semi-mechanised dehusker operates at reasonably high output causing less drudgery compared to the traditional method of dehusking which requires a lot of manpower.
There is a good demand for this machine among farmers especially in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, according to Dr. Ranganna.
Interested readers can contact Dr. B. Ranganna, Professor & Research Engineer, Post Harvest Technology Centre, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, email: rangannab@gmail.com, Bangalore 560065, Phone: 080-23330153 extn-345.
http://www.hindu.com
Around the world in 49 days - with fruit still fresh!
Tholen - In it's cool containers, the logistical company Cargofresh AG offers an environment in which produce stays fresh longer. The market for reefer containers is a growing market worldwide, as 120,000 new containers are produced annually. Since two years, Cargofresh employs a technology which creates a low-oxygen environment in it's cool containers. With the us of "Controlled Atmosphere" (CA) technology, the German company seeks to revolutionize the global logistics of perishables.
The interest from importers and traders in tropical fruit like mangos and papayas has been very high. The CA method has been applied for a long time by apple growers in their fruit storage. By removing oxygen from the air, the aging process in the fruit is delayed. This means fruit can be transported in a more ripe stadium, or that a part of the needed post harvest ripening can be eliminated. This is reflected in more tasteful fruit against a lower price compared to the shipping of ready to eat fruit with air freight, reduced waste losses to critical destination, and in case of elimination of post harvest ripening also reduced costs.
"The application of this technology in the world of logistics is relatively new, as it requires a totally different approach," said chairman of the board Peter W. Wich (61). A simplified description of the process explains the principle as follows; using a compressor the air in the container is continuously pressed through a membrane which filters out the relatively large nitrogen and oxygen molecules. "This can be realized for tropical fruits like papayas and mangos, which are underway around 3 weeks," said Wich.
The oxygen content of the air is reduced to less then 5% within 12 to 15 hours. "In this field, there is nothing comparable anywhere in the world," said Wich. "The competition needs at least three times as long." Furthermore, there is a difference with the method called "Modified Atmosphere" (MA), because even though low-oxygen air is employed there, the oxygen level does increase during the course of the trip.
A major advantage is created with the application of this technology on the long distance transports in Brazil, where temperature differences are strong, combined with the following marine transport overseas. The biggest accomplishment of Cargofresh in this discipline until today is the shipping of mangos from Brazil to Japan in 49 days. "Over 90% if the fruit arrived in excellent condition," says Wich. The marine transport doesn't cost half of the airfreight, but yet leaves the fruit even more tropical for consumption.
For more information, contact:
Cargofresh AG
edunkelmann@cargofresh.com / www.cargofresh.com
An der Strusbek 60-62
29226 Ahrensburg
Germany
Tel + 49 4102 457 270
Fax + 49 4102 457 560
Publication date: 11/21/2007
Author: Andre van der Wiel
Copyright: www.freshplaza.com
http://www.freshplaza.com
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Improvements in cotton fiber properties
Arecanut dehusker addresses labour shortage problems
Researchers at the Post Harvest Technology Centre, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, have developed a semi-mechanised pedal operated arecanut dehusker to meet the dehusking requirement of areca nut growers. Studies made with respect to the cost of processing of arecanut to remove the nuts have revealed that about 35-40 per cent of the total cost of processing is spent for dehusking arecanut alone, which of course, is generally done by farm workers particularly women, according to Dr. B. Ranganna, Professor & Research Engineer, Post Harvest Technology Centre, University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Gandhi Krishi Vigyan Kendra (GKVK), Bangalore. The machine can be operated by employing four persons to dehusk arecanuts simultaneously. The dehusking assembly consists of two sharp edged flaps, one being stationary and the other movable, operated by the pedal through a linkage mechanism. The unit has a hopper to hold about 20 kg of arecanuts. Made of mild steel, the entire unit is mounted on an angle iron stand and the dehusking mechanism is made of spring steel. "This is suitable for dehusking freshly harvested mature green arecanuts of all varieties under cultivation," said Dr. Ranganna. The dehusking capacity of the unit is 160 kg per day with a running time of eight hours and the unit is priced at Rs. 2,650 (does not include packaging and forwarding charges).
This semi-mechanised dehusker operates at reasonably high output causing less drudgery compared to the traditional method of dehusking which requires a lot of manpower. There is a good demand for this machine among farmers especially in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Interested readers can contact Dr. B. Ranganna, Professor & Research Engineer, Post Harvest Technology Centre, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, email: rangannab@gmail.com, Bangalore 560065, Phone: 080-23330153 extn-345.
http://www.hindu.com
Cotton Fibre Growth
Iimprovements in cotton fiber properties for textiles depend on changes in the growth and development of the fiber. Manipulation of fiber perimeter has a potential to impact the length, micronaire, and strength of cotton fibers. The perimeter of the fiber is regulated by biological mechanisms that control the expansion characteristic of the cell wall and establish cell diameter. Improvements in fiber quality can take many different forms. Changes in length, strength, uniformity, and fineness In one recent analysis, fiber perimeter was shown to be the single quantitative trait of the fiber that affects all other traits . Fiber perimeter is the variable that has the greatest affect on fiber elongation and strength properties. While mature dead fibers have an elliptical morphology, living fibers have a cylindrical morphology during growth and development. Geometrically, perimeter is directly determined by diameter (perimeter = diameter × p). Thus, fiber diameter is the only variable that directly affects perimeter. For this reason, understanding the biological mechanisms that regulate fiber diameter is important for the long-term improvement of cotton.
A review of the literature indicates that many researchers believe diameter is established at fiber initiation and is maintained throughout the duration of fiber development. A few studies have examined, either directly or indirectly, changes in fiber diameter during development. Some studies indicate that diameter remains constant ; while others indicate that fiber diameter increases as the fiber develops.
The first three stages occur while the fiber is alive and actively growing. Fiber initiation involves the initial isodiametric expansion of the epidermal cell above the surface of the ovule. This stage may last only a day or so for each fiber. Because there are several waves of fiber initiation across the surface of the ovule , one may find fiber initials at any time during the first 5 or 6 d post anthesis. The elongation phase encompasses the major expansion growth phase of the fiber. Depending on genotype, this stage may last for several weeks post anthesis. During this stage of development the fiber deposits a thin, expandable primary cell wall composed of a variety of carbohydrate polymers . As the fiber approaches the end of elongation, the major phase of secondary wall synthesis starts. In cotton fiber, the secondary cell wall is composed almost exclusively of cellulose. During this stage, which lasts until the boll opens (50 to 60 d post anthesis), the cell wall becomes progressively thicker and the living protoplast decreases in volume. There is a significant overlap in the timing of the elongation and secondary wall synthesis stages. Thus, fibers are simultaneously elongating and depositing secondary cell wall.
The establishment of fiber diameter is a complex process that is governed, to a certain extent, by the overall mechanism by which fibers expand. The expansion of fiber cells is governed by the same related mechanisms occurring in other walled plant cells. Most cells exhibit diffuse cell growth, in which new wall and membrane materials are added throughout the surface area of the cell. Specialized, highly elongated cells, such as root hairs and pollen tubes, expand via tip synthesis where new wall and membrane materials are added only at a specific location that becomes the growing tip of the cell. While the growth mechanisms for cotton fiber have not been fully documented, recent evidence indicates that throughout the initiation and early elongation phases of development, cotton fiber expands primarily via diffuse growth . Later in fiber development, late in cell elongation, and well into secondary cell wall synthesis (35 d post anthesis), the organization of cellular organelles is consistent with continued diffuse growth . Many cells that expand via diffuse growth exhibit increases in both cell length and diameter; but cells that exhibit tip synthesis do not exhibit increases in cell diameter. If cotton fiber expands by diffuse growth, then it is reasonable to suggest that cell diameter might increase during the cell elongation phase of development.
Cell expansion is also regulated by the extensibility of the cell wall. For this reason, cell expansion most commonly occurs in cells that have only a primary cell wall . Primary cell walls contain low levels of cellulose. Production of the more rigid secondary cell wall usually signals the cessation of cell expansion. Secondary cell wall formation is often indicated by the development of wall birefringence.
Analyses of fiber diameter and cell wall birefringence show that fiber diameter significantly increased as fibers grew and developed secondary cell walls. Both cotton species and all the genotypes tested exhibited similar increases in diameter; however, the specific rates of change differed. Fibers continued to increase in diameter during the secondary wall synthesis stage of development, indicating that the synthesis of secondary cell wall does not coincide with the cessation of cell expansion.
Ginning
The generally recommended machinery sequence at gins for spindle-picked cotton is rock and green-boll trap, feed control, tower drier, cylinder cleaner, stick machine, tower drier, cylinder cleaner, extractor feeder, gin stand, lint cleaner, lint cleaner, and press.
Cylinder cleaners use rotating spiked drums that open and clean the seedcotton by scrubbing it across a grid-rod or wire mesh screen that allows the trash to sift through. The stick machine utilizes the sling-off action of channel-type saw cylinders to extract foreign matter from the seedcotton by centrifugal force. In addition to feeding seedcotton to the gin stand, the extractor feeder cleans the cotton using the stick machine's sling-off principle.
In some cases the extractor-feeder is a combination of a cylinder cleaner and an extractor. Sometimes an impact or revolving screen cleaner is used in addition to the second cylinder cleaner. In the impact cleaner, seedcotton is conveyed across a series of revolving, serrated disks instead of the grid-rod or wire mesh screen.
Lint cleaners at gins are mostly of the controlled-batt, saw type. In this cleaner a saw cylinder combs the fibers and extracts trash from the lint cotton by a combination of centrifugal force, scrubbing action between saw cylinder and grid bars, and gravity assisted by an air current Seedcotton-type cleaners extract the large trash components from cotton. However, they have only a small influence on the cotton's grade index, visible liint foreign-matter content, and fiber length distribution when compared with the lint cleaning effects. Also, the number of neps created by the entire seedcotton cleaning process is about the same as the increase caused by one saw-cylinder lint cleaner.
Most cotton gins today use one or two stages of saw-type lint cleaners. The use of too many stages of lint cleaning can reduce the market value of the bale, because the weight loss may offset any gain from grade improvement. Increasing the number of saw lint cleaners at gins, in addition to increasing the nep count and short-fiber content of the raw lint, causes problems at the spinning mill. These show up as more neps in the card web and reduced yarn strength and appearance.
Pima cotton, extra-long-staple cotton, is roller ginned to preserve its length and to minimize neps. To maintain the highest possible quality bale of pima cotton, mill-type lint cleaners were for a long time the predominant cleaner used by the roller-ginning industry. Today, various combinations of impacts, incline, and pneumatic cleaners are used in most roller-ginning plants to increase lint-cleaning capacity.
Cotton fiber quality
Two simple words, fiber quality, mean quite different things to cotton growers and to cotton processors. No after-harvest mechanisms are available to either growers or processors that can improve intrinsic fiber quality.
Most cotton production research by physiologists and agronomists has been directed toward improving yields, so the few cultural-input strategies suggested for improving fiber quality quality and yield without increased production costs.
Fiber processors seek to acquire the highest quality cotton at the lowest price, and attempt to meet processing requirements by blending bales with different average fiber properties. Of course, bale averages for fiber properties do not describe the fiber-quality ranges that can occur within the bales or the resulting blends. Further, the natural variability among cotton fibers unpredictably reduces the processing success for blends made up of low-priced, lower-quality fibers and high-priced, higher-quality fibers.
Blends that fail to meet processing specifications show marked increases in processing disruptions and product defects that cut into the profits of the yarn and textile manufacturers. Mill owners do not have sufficient knowledge of the role classing-office fiber properties play in determining the outcome of cotton spinning and dyeing processes.
Even when a processor is able to make the connection between yarn and fabric defects and increased proportions of low-quality fibers, producers have no way of explaining why the rejected bales failed to meet processing specifications when the bale averages for important fiber properties fell within the acceptable ranges.
If, on the other hand, the causes of a processing defect are unknown, neither the producer nor the processor will be able to prevent or avoid that defect in the future. Any future research that is designed to predict, prevent, or avoid low-quality cotton fibers that cause processing defects in yarn and fabric must address the interface between cotton production and cotton processing.
Every bale of cotton produced in the USA crosses that interface via the USDA-AMS classing offices, which report bale averages of quantified fiber properties. Indeed, fiber-quality data reports from classing offices are designed as a common quantitative language that can be interpreted and understood by both producers and processors. But the meaning and utility of classing-office reports can vary, depending on the instrument used to evaluate.
Fiber maturity is a composite of factors, including inherent genetic fineness compared with the perimeter or cross section achieved under prevailing growing conditions and the relative fiber cell-wall thickness and the primary -to- secondary fiber cell-wall ratio, and the time elapsed between flowering and boll opening or harvest. While all the above traits are important to varying degrees in determining processing success, none of them appear in classing-office reports.
Micronaire, which is often treated as the fiber maturity measurement in classing-office data, provides an empirical composite of fiber cross section and relative wall thickening. But laydown blends that are based solely on bale-average micronaire will vary greatly in processing properties and outcomes.
Cotton physiologists who follow fiber development can discuss fiber chronological maturity in terms of days after floral anthesis. But, they must quantify the corresponding fiber physical maturity as micronaire readings for samples pooled across several plants, because valid micronaire determinations require at least 10 g of individualized fiber.
Some fiber properties, like length and single fiber strength, appear to be simple and easily understood terms. But the bale average length reported by the classing office does not describe the range or variability of fiber lengths that must be handled by the spinning equipment processing each individual fiber from the highly variable fiber population found in that bale.
Even when a processing problem can be linked directly to a substandard fiber property, surprisingly little is known about the causes of variability in fiber shape and maturity. For example:
Spinners can see the results of excessive variability in fiber length or strength when manifested as yarn breaks and production halts.Knitters and weavers can see the knots and slubs or holes that reduce the value of fabrics made from defective yarns that were spun from poor-quality fibre Inspectors of dyed fabrics can see the unacceptable color streaks and specks associated with variations in fiber maturity and the relative dye-uptake success.
The grower, ginner, and buyer can see variations in color or trash content of ginned and baled cotton.
But there are no inspectors or instruments that can see or predict any of the above quality traits of fibers while they are developing in the boll. There is no definitive reference source, model, or database to which a producer can turn for information on how cultural inputs could be adapted to the prevailing growth conditions of soil fertility, water availability, and weather (temperature, for example) to produce higher quality fiber.
The scattered research publications that address fiber quality, usually in conjunction with yield improvement, are confusing because their measurement protocols are not standardized and results are not reported in terms that are meaningful to either producers or processors. Thus, physiological and agronomic studies of fiber quality frequently widen, rather than bridge, the communication gap between cotton producers and processors.
This overview assembles and assesses current literature citations regarding the quantitation of fiber quality and the manner in which irrigation, soil fertility, weather, and cotton genetic potential interact to modulate fiber quality. The ultimate goal is to provide access to the best answers currently available to the question of what causes the annual and regional fiber quality variations From the physiologist's perspective, the fiber quality of a specific cotton genotype is a composite of fiber shape and maturity properties that depend on complex interactions among the genetics and physiology of the plants producing the fibers and the growth environment prevailing during the cotton production season.
Fiber shape properties, particularly length and diameter, are largely dependent on genetics. Fiber maturity properties, which are dependent on deposition of photosynthate in the fiber cell wall, are more sensitive to changes in the growth environment. The effects of the growth environment on the genetic potential of a genotype modulate both shape and maturity properties to varying degrees.
Anatomically, a cotton fiber is a seed hair, a single hyperelongated cell arising from the protodermal cells of the outer integument layer of the seed coat. Like all living plant cells, developing cotton fibers respond individually to fluctuations in the macro- and microenvironments. Thus, the fibers on a single seed constitute continua of fiber length, shape, cell-wall thickness, and physical maturity.
Environmental variations within the plant canopy, among the individual plants, and within and among fields ensure that the fiber population in each boll, indeed on each seed, encompasses a broad range of fiber properties and that every bale of cotton contains a highly variable population of fibers.
Successful processing of cotton lint depends on appropriate management during and after harvest of those highly variable fiber properties that have been shown to affect finished-product quality and manufacturing efficiency . If fiber-blending strategies and subsequent spinning and dyeing processes are to be optimized for specific end-uses and profitability, production managers in textile mills need accurate and effective descriptive and predictive quantitative measures of both the means and the ranges of these highly variable fiber properties.
In the USA, the components of cotton fiber quality are usually defined as those properties reported for every bale by the classing offices of the USDA-AMS, which currently include length, length uniformity index, strength, micronaire, color as reflectance (Rd) and yellowness (+b), and trash content, all quantified by the High Volume Instrument (HVI) line. The classing offices also provide each bale with the more qualitative classers' color and leaf grades and with estimates of preparation (degree of roughness of ginned lint) and content of extraneous matter.
The naturally wide variations in fiber quality, in combination with differences in end-use requirements, result in significant variability in the value of the cotton lint to the processor. Therefore, a system of premiums and discounts has been established to denote a specified base quality. In general, cotton fiber value increases as the bulk-averaged fibers increase in whiteness (+Rd), length, strength, and micronaire; and discounts are made for both low mike (micronaire less than 3.5) and high mike (micronaire more than 4.9).
Ideal fiber-quality specifications favored by processors traditionally have been summarized thusly: "as white as snow, as long as wool, as strong as steel, as fine as silk, and as cheap as hell." These specifications are extremely difficult to incorporate into a breeding program or to set as goals for cotton producers. Fiber-classing technologies in use and being tested allow quantitation of fiber properties, improvement of standards for end-product quality, and, perhaps most importantly, creation of a fiber-quality language and system of fiber-quality measurements that can be meaningful and useful to producers and processors alike.during the production season are of limited validity. Thus, producers have limited alternatives in production practices that might result in fibers of acceptable
Gene and environment variability
Improvements in textile processing, particularly advances in spinning technology, have led to increased emphasis on breeding cotton for both improved yield and improved fiber properties Studies of gene action suggest that, within upland cotton genotypes there is little non-additive gene action in fiber length, strength, and fineness ; that is, genes determine those fiber properties. However, large interactions between combined annual environmental factors (primarily weather) and fiber strength suggest that environmental variability can prevent full realization of the fiber-quality potential of a cotton genotype.
More recently, statistical comparisons of the relative genetic and environmental influences upon fiber strength suggest that fiber strength is determined by a few major genes, rather than by variations in the growth environment . Indeed, spatial variations of single fertility factors in the edaphic environment were found to be unrelated to fiber strength and only weakly correlated with fiber length.
Genetic potential of a specific genotype is defined as the level of fiber yield or quality that could be attained under optimal growing conditions. The degree to which genetic potential is realized changes in response to environmental fluctuations such as application of water or fertilizer and the inevitable seasonal shifts such as temperature, day length, and insolation.
In addition to environment-related modulations of fiber quality at the crop and whole-plant levels, significant differences in fiber properties also can be traced to variations among the shapes and maturities of fibers on a single seed and, consequently, within a given boll.
Effect on Fiber length
Comparisons of the fiber-length arrays from different regions on a single seed have revealed that markedly different patterns in fiber length can be found in the micropylar, middle, and chalazal regions of a cotton seed - at either end and around the middle . Mean fiber lengths were shortest at the micropylar (upper, pointed end of the seed) . The most mature fibers and the fibers having the largest perimeters also were found in the micropylar region of the seed. After hand ginning, the percentage of short fibers less than 0.5 inch or 12.7 mm long on a cotton seed was extremely low.
It has been reported that, in ginned and baled cotton, the short fibers with small perimeters did not originate in the micropylar region of the seed . MEasurements of fibers from micropylar and chalazal regions of seeds revealed that the location of a seed within the boll was related to the magnitude of the differences in the properties of fibers from the micropylar and chalazal regions.
Significant variations in fiber maturity also can be related to the seed position (apical, medial, or due to the variability inherent in cotton fiber, there is no absolute value for fiber length within a genotype or within a test sample . Even on a single seed, fiber lengths vary significantly because the longer fibers occur at the chalazal (cup-shaped, lower) end of the seed and the shorter fibers are found at the micropylar (pointed) end. Coefficients of fiber-length variation, which also vary significantly from sample to sample, are on the order of 40% for upland cotton.
Variations in fiber length attributable to genotype and fiber location on the seed are modulated by factors in the micro- and macroenvironment . Environmental changes occurring around the time of floral anthesis may limit fiber initiation or retard the onset of fiber elongation. Suboptimal environmental conditions during the fiber elongation phase may decrease the rate of elongation or shorten the elongation period so that the genotypic potential for fiber length is not fully realized . Further, the results of environmental stresses and the corresponding physiological responses to the growth environment may become evident at a stage in fiber development that is offset in time from the occurrence of the stressful conditions.
Fiber lengths on individual seeds can be determined while the fibers are still attached to the seed , by hand stapling or by photoelectric measurement after ginning. Traditionally, staple lengths have been measured and reported to the nearest 32nd of an inch or to the nearest millimeter. The four upland staple classes are: short (<21>34 mm). Additionally, short fiber content is defined as the percentage of fiber less than 12.7 mm.
Cotton buyers and processors used the term staple length long before development of quantitative methods for measuring fiber properties. Consequently, staple length has never been formally defined in terms of a statistically valid length distribution.
In Fibrograph testing, fibers are randomly caught on combs, and the beard formed by the captured fibers is scanned photoelectrically from base to tip . The amount of light passing through the beard is a measure of the number of fibers that extend various distances from the combs. Data are recorded as span length (the distance spanned by a specific percentage of fibers in the test beard). Span lengths are usually reported as 2.5 and 50%. The 2.5% span length is the basis for machine settings at various stages during fiber processing.
The uniformity ratio is the ratio between the two span lengths expressed as a percentage of the longer length. The Fibrograph provides a relatively fast method for reproducibility in measuring the length and length uniformity of fiber samples. Fibrograph test data are used in research studies, in qualitative surveys such as those checking commercial staple-length classifications, and in assembling cotton bales into uniform lots.
Since 1980, USDA-AMS classing offices have relied almost entirely on high-volume instrumentation (HVI) for measuring fiber length and other fiber properties (Moore, 1996). The HVI length analyzer determines length parameters by photoelectrically scanning a test beard that is selected by a specimen loader and prepared by a comber/brusher attachment
The fibers in the test beard are assumed to be uniform in cross-section, but this is a false assumption because the cross section of each individual fiber in the beard varies significantly from tip to tip. The HVI fiber-length data are converted into the percentage of the total number of fibers present at each length value and into other length parameters, such as mean length, upper-half mean length, and length uniformity . This test method for determining cotton fiber length is considered acceptable for testing commercial shipments when the testing services use the same reference standard cotton samples.
All fiber-length methods discussed above require a minimum of 5 g of ginned fibers and were developed for rapid classing of relatively large, bulk fiber samples. For analyses of small fiber samples , fiber property measurements with an electron-optical particle-sizer, the Zellweger Uster AFIS-A2 have been found to be acceptably sensitive, rapid, and reproducible. The AFIS-A2 Length and Diameter module generates values for mean fiber length by weight and mean fiber length by number, fiber length histograms, and values for upper quartile length, and for short-fiber contents by weight and by number (the percentages of fibers shorter than 12.7 mm). The AFIS-A2 Length and Diameter module also quantifies mean fiber diameter by number.
Although short-fiber content is not currently included in official USDA-AMS classing office reports, short-fiber content is increasingly recognized as a fiber property comparable in importance to fiber fineness, strength, and length . The importance of short-fiber content in determining fiber-processing success, yarn properties, and fabric performance has led the post-harvest sector of the U.S. cotton industry to assign top priority to minimizing short-fiber content, whatever the causes.
The perceived importance of short-fiber content to processors has led to increased demands for development and approval of a standard short-fiber content measurement that would be added to classing office HVI systems . This accepted classing office-measurement would allow inclusion of short-fiber content in the cotton valuation system. Documentation of post-ginning short-fiber content at the bale level is expected to reduce the cost of textile processing and to increase the value of the raw fiber . However, modulation of short-fiber content before harvest cannot be accomplished until the causes of increased short-fiber content are better understood.
Fiber length is primarily a genetic trait, but short-fiber content is dependent upon genotype, growing conditions, and harvesting, ginning, and processing methods. Further, little is known about the levels or sources of pre-harvest short-fiber content.
It is essential that geneticists and physiologists understand the underlying concepts and the practical limitations of the methods for measuring fiber length and short-fiber content so that the strong genetic component in fiber length can be separated from environmental components introduced by excessive temperatures and water or nutrient deficiencies. Genetic improvement of fiber length is fruitless if the responses of the new genotypes to the growth environment prevent full realization of the enhanced genetic potential or if the fibers produced by the new genotypes break more easily during harvesting or processing. The reported effects of several environmental factors on fiber length and short-fiber content, which are assumed to be primarily genotype-dependent, are discussed in the subsections that follow.
Fiber length and temperature
Maximum cotton fiber lengths were reached when night temperatures were around 19 to 20 °C, depending on the genotype. Early-stage fiber elongation was highly temperature dependent; late fiber elongation was temperature independent. Fiber length (upper-half mean length) was negatively correlated with the difference between maximum and minimum temperature.
Modifications of fiber length by growth temperatures also have been observed in planting-date studies in which the later planting dates were associated with small increases in 2.5 and 50% span lengths. If the growing season is long enough and other inhibitory factors do not interfere with fiber development, early-season delays in fiber initiation and elongation may be counteracted by an extension of the elongation period.
Variations in fiber length and the elongation period also were associated with relative heat-unit accumulations. Regression analyses showed that genotypes that produced longer fibers were more responsive to heat-unit accumulation levels than were genotypes that produced shorter fibers. However, the earliness of the genotype was also a factor in the relationship between fiber length (and short-fiber content by weight) and accumulated heat units.
As temperature increased, the number of small motes per boll also increased. Fertilization efficiency, which was negatively correlated with small-mote frequency, also decreased. Although fiber length did not change significantly with increasing temperature, the percentage of short-fibers was lower when temperatures were higher. The apparent improvement in fiber length uniformity may be related to increased assimilate availability to the fibers because there were fewer seeds per boll.
Fiber length and water
Cotton water relationships and irrigation traditionally have been studied with respect to yield . Fiber length was not affected unless the water deficit was great enough to lower the yield to 700 kg ha-1. Fiber elongation was inhibited when the midday water potential was -2.5 to -2.8 mPa. Occurrence of moisture deficits during the early flowering period did not alter fiber length. However, when drought occurred later in the flowering period, fiber length was decreased.
Severe water deficits during the fiber elongation stage reduce fiber length , apparently due simply to the direct mechanical and physiological processes of cell expansion. However, water availability and the duration and timing of flowering and boll set can result in complex physiological interactions between water deficits and fiber properties including length.
Fibre length and light
Changes in the growth environment also alter canopy structure and the photon flux environment within the canopy. For example, loss of leaves and bolls from unfavorable weather (wind, hail), disease, or herbivory and compensatory regrowth can greatly affect both fiber yield and quality . The amount of light within the crop canopy is an important determinant of photosynthetic activity and, therefore, of the source-to-sink relationships that allocate photoassimilate within the canopy . Eaton and Ergle (1954) observed that reduced-light treatments increased fiber length. Shading during the first 7 d after floral anthesis resulted in a 2% increase in the 2.5% span length.
Shading (or prolonged periods of cloudy weather) and seasonal shifts in day length also modulate temperature, which modifies fiber properties, including length.
Commercial cotton genotypes are considered to be day-length neutral with respect to both flowering and fruiting. However, incorporation of day-length data in upland and pima fiber-quality models, based on accumulated heat units, increased the coefficients of determination for the length predictors from 30 to 54% for the upland model and from 44 to 57% for the pima model.
It was found that the light wavelengths reflected from red and green mulches increased fiber length, even though plants grown under those mulches received less reflected photosynthetic flux than did plants grown with white mulches. The longest fiber was harvested from plants that received the highest far red/red ratios.
Fiber length and mineral nutrition
Studies of the mineral nutrition of cotton and the related soil chemistry usually have emphasized increased yield and fruiting efficiency. More recently, the effects of nutrient stress on boll shedding have been examined. Also, several mineral-nutrition studies have been extended to include fiber quality.
Reports of fiber property trends following nutrient additions are often contradictory due to the interactive effects of genotype, climate, and soil conditions. Potassium added at the rate of 112 kg K ha-1yr-1 did not affect the 2.5% span length, when genotype was a significant factor in determining both 2.5 and 50% span lengths. Genotype was not a significant factor in Acala fiber length, but an additional 480 kg K ha-1yr-1 increased the mean fiber length. K ha-1yr-1 increased the length uniformity ratio and increased 50%, but not 2.5% span length. Genotype and the interaction, genotype-by-environment, determined the 2.5% span length.
As mentioned above, fiber length is assumed to be genotype-dependent, but growth-environment fluctuations - both those resulting from seasonal and annual variability in weather conditions and those induced by cultural practices and inputs - modulate the range and mean of the fiber length population at the test sample, bale, and crop levels.
Quantitation of fiber length is relatively straightforward and reproducible, and fiber length (along with micronaire) is one of the most likely fiber properties to be included when cotton production research is extended beyond yield determinations. Other fiber properties are less readily quantified, and the resulting data are not so easily understood or analyzed statistically. This is particularly true of fiber-breaking strength, which has become a crucial fiber property due to changes in spinning techniques.
Fiber Strength
The inherent breaking strength of individual cotton fibers is considered to be the most important factor in determining the strength of the yarn spun from those fibers . Recent developments in high-speed yarn spinning technology, specifically open-end rotor spinning systems, have shifted the fiber-quality requirements of the textile industry toward higher-strength fibers that can compensate for the decrease in yarn strength associated with open-end rotor spinning techniques.
Compared with conventional ring spinning, open-end rotor-spun yarn production capacity is five times greater and, consequently, more economical. Rotor-spun yarn is more even than the ring-spun, but is 15 to 20% weaker than ring-spun yarn of the same thickness. Thus, mills using open-end rotor and friction spinning have given improved fiber strength highest priority. Length and length uniformity, followed by fiber strength and fineness, remain the most important fiber properties in determining ring-spun yarn strength.
Historically, two instruments have been used to measure fiber tensile strength, the Pressley apparatus and the Stelometer. In both of these flat-bundle methods, a bundle of fibers is combed parallel and secured between two clamps. A force to try to separate the clamps is applied and gradually increased until the fiber bundle breaks. Fiber tensile strength is calculated from the ratio of the breaking load to bundle mass. Due to the natural lack of homogeneity within a population of cotton fibers, bundle fiber selection, bundle construction and, therefore, bundle mass measurements, are subject to considerable experimental error.
Fiber strength, that is, the force required to break a fiber, varies along the length of the fiber, as does fiber fineness measured as perimeter, diameter, or cross section Further, the inherent variability within and among cotton fibers ensures that two fiber bundles of the same weight will not contain the same number of fibers. Also, the within-sample variability guarantees that the clamps of the strength testing apparatus will not grasp the various fibers in the bundle at precisely equivalent positions along the lengths. Thus, a normalizing length-weight factor is included in bundle strength calculations.
In the textile literature, fiber strength is reported as breaking tenacity or grams of breaking load per tex, where tex is the fiber linear density in grams per kilometer. Both Pressley and stelometer breaking tenacities are reported as 1/8 in. gauge tests, the 1/8 in. (or 3.2 mm) referring to the distance between the two Pressley clamps. Flat-bundle measurements of fiber strength are considered satisfactory for acceptance testing and for research studies of the influence of genotype, environment, and processing on fiber (bundle) strength and elongation.
The relationships between fiber strength and elongation and processing success also have been examined using flat-bundle strength testing methods. However cotton fiber testing today requires that procedures be rapid, reproducible, automated, and without significant operator bias. Consequently, the HVI systems used for length measurements in USDA-AMS classing offices are also used to measure the breaking strength of the same fiber bundles (beards) formed during length measurement.
Originally, HVI strength tests were calibrated against the 1/8-in. gauge Pressley measurement, but the bundle-strengths of reference cottons are now established by Stelometer tests that also provide bundle elongation-percent data. Fiber bundle elongation is measured directly from the displacement of the jaws during the bundle-breaking process, and the fiber bundle strength and elongation data usually are reported together (ASTM, 1994, D 4604-86). The HVI bundle-strength measurements are reported in grams-force tex-1 and can range from 30 and above (very strong) to 20 or below (very weak). In agronomic papers, fiber strengths are normally reported as kN m kg-1, where one Newton equals 9.81 kg-force.
The HVI bundle-strength and elongation-percent testing methods are satisfactory for acceptance testing and research studies when 3.0 to 3.3 g of blended fibers are available and the relative humidity of the testing room is adequately controlled. A 1% increase in relative humidity and the accompanying increase in fiber moisture content will increase the strength value by 0.2 to 0.3 g tex-1, depending on the fiber genotype and maturity.
Further, classing-office HVI measurements of fiber strength do not adequately describe the variations of fiber strength along the length of the individual fibers or within the test bundle. Thus, predictions of yarn strength based on HVI bundle-strength data can be inadequate and misleading. The problem of fiber-strength variability is being addressed by improved HVI calibration methods and by computer simulations of bundle-break tests in which the simulations are based on large single-fiber strength databases of more than 20 000 single fiber long-elongation curves obtained with MANTIS.
Fiber Strength, Environment, and Genotype
Reports of stelometer measurements of fiber bundle strength are relatively rare in the refereed agronomic literature. Consequently, the interactions of environment and genotype in determining fiber strength are not as well documented as the corresponding interactions that modulate fiber length. Growth environment, and genotype response to that environment, play a part in determining fiber strength and strength variability.
Early studies showed fiber strength to be significantly and positively correlated with maximum or mean growth temperature, maximum minus minimum growth temperature, and potential insolation . Increased strength was correlated with a decrease in precipitation. Minimum temperature did not affect fiber strength. All environmental variables were interrelated, and a close general association between fiber strength and environment was interpreted as indicating that fiber strength is more responsive to the growth environment than are fiber length and fineness. Other investigators reported that fiber strength was correlated with genotype only.
Square removal did not affect either fiber elongation or fiber strength . Shading, leaf-pruning, and partial fruit removal decreased fiber strength . Selective square removal had no effect on fiber strength in bolls at the first, second, or third position on a fruiting branch . Fiber strength was slightly greater in bolls from the first 4 to 6 wk of flowering, compared with fibers from bolls produced by flowers opening during the last 2 wk of the flowering period.
In that study, fiber strength was positively correlated with heat unit accumulation during boll development, but genotype, competition among bolls, assimilatory capacity, and variations in light environment also helped determine fiber strength. Early defoliation, at 20% open bolls, increased fiber strength and length, but the yield loss due to earlier defoliation offset any potential improvement in fiber quality.
Fiber Maturity
Of the fiber properties reported by USDA-AMS classing offices for use by the textile industry, fiber maturity is probably the least well-defined and most misunderstood. The term, fiber maturity, used in cotton marketing and processing is not an estimate of the time elapsed between floral anthesis and fiber harvest. However, such chronological maturity can be a useful concept in studies that follow fiber development and maturation with time. On the physiological and the physical bases, fiber maturity is generally accepted to be the degree (amount) of fiber cell-wall thickening relative to the diameter or fineness of the fiber.
Classically, a mature fiber is a fiber in which two times the cell wall thickness equals or exceeds the diameter of the fiber cell lumen, the space enclosed by the fiber cell walls. However, this simple definition of fiber maturity is complicated by the fact that the cross section of a cotton fiber is never a perfect circle; the fiber diameter is primarily a genetic characteristic.
Further, both the fiber diameter and the cell-wall thickness vary significantly along the length of the fiber. Thus, attempting to differentiate, on the basis of wall thickness, between naturally thin-walled or genetically fine fibers and truly immature fibers with thin walls greatly complicates maturity comparisons among and within genotypes.
Within a single fiber sample examined by image analysis, cell-wall thickness ranged from 3.4 to 4.9 µm when lumen diameters ranged from 2.4 to 5.2 µm. Based on the cited definition of a mature fiber having a cell-wall thickness two times the lumen diameter, 90% of the 40 fibers in that sample were mature, assuming that here had been no fiber-selection bias in the measurements.
Unfortunately, none of the available methods for quantifying cell-wall thickness is sufficiently rapid and reproducible to be used by agronomists, the classing offices, or fiber processors. Fiber diameter can be quantified, but diameter data are of limited use in determining fiber maturity without estimates of the relationship between lumen width and wall thickness. Instead, processors have attempted to relate fiber fineness to processing outcome.
Estimating Fiber Fineness
Fiber fineness has long been recognized as an important factor in yarn strength and uniformity, properties that depend largely on the average number of fibers in the yarn cross section. Spinning larger numbers of finer fibers together results in stronger, more uniform yarns than if they had been made up of fewer, thicker fibers. However, direct determinations of biological fineness in terms of fiber or lumen diameter and cell-wall thickness are precluded by the high costs in both time and labor, the noncircular cross sections of dry cotton fibers, and the high degree of variation in fiber fineness.
Advances in image analysis have improved determinations of fiber biological fineness and maturity, but fiber image analyses remain too slow and limited with respect to sample size for inclusion in the HVI-based cotton-classing process.
Originally, the textile industry adopted gravimetric fiber fineness or linear density as an indicator of the fiber-spinning properties that depend on fiber fineness and maturity combined. This gravimetric fineness testing method was discontinued in 1989, but the textile linear density unit of tex persists. Tex is measured as grams per kilometer of fiber or yarn, and fiber fineness is usually expressed as millitex or micrograms per meter. Earlier, direct measurements of fiber fineness (either biological or gravimetric) subsequently were replaced by indirect fineness measurements based on the resistance of a bundle of fibers to airflow.
The first indirect test method approved by ASTM for measurement of fiber maturity, lineardensity, and maturity index was the causticaire method. In that test, the resistance of a plug of cotton to airflow was measured before and after a cell-wall swelling treatment with an 18% (4.5 M) solution of NaOH (ASTM, 1991, D 2480-82). The ratio between the rate of airflow through an untreated and then treated fiber plug was taken as indication of the degree of fiber wall development. The airflow reading for the treated sample was squared and corrected for maturity to serve as an indirect estimate of linear density. Causticaire method results were found to be highly variable among laboratories, and the method never was recommended for acceptance testing before it was discontinued in 1992.
The arealometer was the first dual-compression airflow instrument for estimating both fiber fineness and fiber maturity from airflow rates through untreated raw cotton (ASTM, 1976, D 1449-58; Lord and Heap, 1988). The arealometer provides an indirect measurement of the specific surface area of loose cotton fibers, that is, the external area of fibers per unit volume (approximately 200-mg samples in four to five replicates). Empirical formulae were developed for calculating the approximate maturity ratio and the average perimeter, wall thickness, and weight per inch from the specific surface area data. The precision and accuracy of arealometer determinations were sensitive to variations in sample preparation, to repeated sample handling, and to previous mechanical treatment of the fibers, e.g., conditions during harvesting, blending, and opening. The arealometer was never approved for acceptance testing, and the ASTM method was withdrawn in 1977 without replacement.
The variations in biological fineness and relative maturity of cotton fibers that were described earlier cause the porous plugs used in air-compression measurements to respond differently to compression and, consequently, to airflow. The IIC-Shirley Fineness/Maturity Tester (Shirley FMT), a dual-compression instrument, was developed to compensate for this plug-variation effect (ASTM, 1994, D 3818-92). The Shirley FMT is considered suitable for research, but is not used for acceptance testing due to low precision and accuracy. Instead, micronaire has become the standard estimate of both fineness and maturity in the USDA-AMS classing offices.
Fiber Maturity and Environment
Whatever the direct or indirect method used for estimating fiber maturity, the fiber property being as sayed remains the thickness of the cell wall. The primary cell wall and cuticle (together »0.1 µm thick) make up about 2.4% of the total wall thickness (»4.1 µm of the cotton fiber thickness at harvest). The rest of the fiber cell wall (»98%) is the cellulosic secondary wall, which thickens significantly as polymerized photosynthate is deposited during fiber maturation. Therefore, any environmental factor that affects photosynthetic C fixation and cellulose synthesis will also modulate cotton fiber wall thickening and, consequently, fiber physiological maturation
Fiber Maturity and Temperature and Planting Date
The dilution, on a weight basis, of the chemically complex primary cell wall by secondary-wall cellulose has been followed with X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. This technique determines the decrease, with time, in the relative weight ratio of the Ca associated with the pectin-rich primary wall. Growth-environment differences between the two years of the studies cited significantly altered maturation rates, which were quantified as rate of Ca weight-dilution, of both upland and pima genotypes. The rates of secondary wall deposition in both upland and pima genotypes were closely correlated with growth temperature; that is, heat-unit accumulation .
Micronaire (micronAFIS) also was found to increase linearly with time for upland and pima genotypes. The rates of micronaire increase were correlated with heat-unit accumulations. Rates of increase in fiber cross-sectional area were less linear than the corresponding micronaire-increase rates, and rates of upland and pima fiber cell-wall thickening were linear and without significant genotypic effect.
Environmental modulation of fiber maturity (micronaire) by temperature was most often identified in planting- and flowering-date studies. The effects of planting date on micronaire, Shirley FMT fiber maturity ratio, and fiber fineness (in millitex) were highly significant in a South African study (Greef and Human, 1983). Although genotypic differences were detected among the three years of that study, delayed planting generally resulted in lower micronaire. The effect on fiber maturity of late planting was repeated in the Shirley FMT maturity ratio and fiber fineness data.
Planting date significantly modified degree of thickening, immature fiber fraction, cross-sectional area, and micronaire (micronAFIS) of four upland genotypes that also were grown in South Carolina. In general, micronaire decreased with later planting, but early planting also reduced micronaire of Deltapine 5490, a long-season genotype, in a year when temperatures were suboptimal during the early part of the season.
Harvest dates in this study also were staggered so that the length of the growing season was held constant within each year. Therefore, season-length should not have been an important factor in the relationships found between planting date and fiber maturity.
Fiber Maturity and Source-Sink Manipulation
Variations in fiber maturity were linked with source-sink modulations related to flowering date, and seed position within the bolls. However, manipulation of source-sink relationships by early-season square (floral bud) removal had no consistently significant effect on upland cotton micronaire in one study. However, selective square removal at the first, second, and third fruiting sites along the branches increased micronaire, compared with controls from which no squares had been removed beyond natural square shedding. The increases in micronaire after selective square removals were associated with increased fiber wall thickness, but not with increased strength of elongation percent. Early-season square removal did not affect fiber perimeter or wall thickness (measured by arealometer). Partial defruiting increased micronaire and had no consistent effect on upland fiber perimeter in bolls from August flowers.
Fiber Maturity and Water
Generous water availability can delay fiber maturation (cellulose deposition) by stimulating competition for assimilates between early-season bolls and vegetative growth. Adequate water also can increase the maturity of fibers from mid-season flowers by supporting photosynthetic C fixation. In a year with insufficient rainfall, initiating irrigation when the first-set bolls were 20-d old increased micronaire, but irrigation initiation at first bloom had no effect on fiber maturity. Irrigation and water-conservation effects on fiber fineness (millitex) were inconsistent between years, but both added water and mulching tended to increase fiber fineness. Aberrations in cell-wall synthesis that were correlated with drought stress have been detected and characterized by glycoconjugate analysis .
An adequate water supply during the growing season allowed maturation of more bolls at upper and outer fruiting positions, but the mote counts tended to be higher in those extra bolls and the fibers within those bolls tended to be less mature. Rainfall and the associated reduction in insolation levels during the blooming period resulted in reduced fiber maturity. Irrigation method also modified micronaire levels and distributions among fruiting sites.
Early-season drought resulted in fibers of greater maturity and higher micronaire in bolls at branch positions 1 and 2 on the lower branches of rainfed plants. However, reduced insolation and heavy rain reduced micronaire and increased immature fiber fractions in bolls from flowers that opened during the prolonged rain incident. Soil water deficit as well as excess may reduce micronaire if the water stress is severe or prolonged.
Fiber Maturity and Genetic Improvement
Micronaire or maturity data now appear in most cotton improvement reports. In a five-parent half-diallel mating design, environment had no effect on HVI micronaire. However, a significant genotypic effect was found to be associated with differences between parents and the F1 generation and with differences among the F1 generation. The micronaire means for the parents were not significantly different, although HVI micronaire means were significantly different for the F1 generation as a group. The HVI was judged to be insufficiently sensitive for detection of the small difference in fiber maturity resulting from the crosses.
In another study, F2 hybrids had finer fibers (lower micronaire) than did the parents, but the improvements were deemed too small to be of commercial value. Unlike the effects of environment on the genetic components of other fiber properties, variance in micronaire due to the genotype-by-environment interaction can reach levels expected for genetic variance in length and strength. Significant interactions were found between genetic additive variance and environmental variability for micronaire, strength, and span length in a study of 64 F2 hybrids .
The strong environmental components in micronaire and fiber maturity limit the usefulness of these fiber properties in studies of genotypic differences in response to growth environment. Based on micronaire, fiber maturity, cell-wall thickness, fiber perimeter, or fiber fineness data, row spacing had either no or minimal effect on okra-leaf or normal-leaf genotypes. Early planting reduced micronaire, wall-thickness, and fiber fineness of the okra-leaf genotype in one year of that study. In another study of leaf pubescence, nectaried vs. no nectaries, and leaf shape, interactions with environment were significant but of much smaller magnitude than the interactions among traits.
Micronaire means for Bt transgenic lines were higher than the micronaire means of Coker 312 and MD51ne when those genotypes were grown in Arizona . In two years out of three, micronaire means of all genotypes in this study, including the controls, exceeded 4.9; in other words, were penalty grade. This apparent undesirable environmental effect on micronaire may have been caused by a change in fiber testing methods in the one year of the three for which micronaire readings were below the upper penalty limit. Genotypic differences in bulk micronaire may either be emphasized or minimized, depending on the measurement method used.
GRADE:
In U.S. cotton classing, nonmandatory grade standards were first established in 1909, but compulsory upland grade standards were not set until 1915. Official pima standards were first set in 1918. Grade is a composite assessment of three factors - color, leaf, and preparation. Color and trash (leaf and stem residues) can be quantified instrumentally, but traditional, manual cotton grade classification is still provided by USDA-AMS in addition to the instrumental HVI trash and color values. Thus, cotton grade reports are still made in terms of traditional color and leaf grades; for example, light spotted, tinged, strict low middling.
Preparation:
There is no approved instrumental measure of preparation - the degree of roughness/smoothness of the ginned lint. Methods of harvesting, handling, and ginning the cotton fibers produce differences in roughness that are apparent during manual inspection; but no clear correlations have been found between degree of preparation and spinning success. The frequency of tangled knots or mats of fiber (neps) may be higher in high-prep lint, and both the growth and processing environments can modulate nep frequency. However, abnormal preparation occurs in less than 0.5% of the U.S. crop during harvesting and ginning.
Trash or Leaf Grade:
Even under ideal field conditions, cotton lint becomes contaminated with leaf residues and other trash. Although most foreign matter is removed by cleaning processes during ginning, total trash extraction is impractical and can lower the quality of ginned fiber. In HVI cotton classing, a video scanner measures trash in raw cotton, and the trash data are reported in terms of the total trash area and trash particle counts (ASTM, D 4604-86, D 4605-86). Trash content data may be used for acceptance testing. In 1993, classer's grade was split into color grade and leaf grade. Other factors being equal, cotton fibers mixed with the smallest amount of foreign matter have the highest value. Therefore, recent research efforts have been directed toward the development of a computer vision system that measures detailed trash and color attributes of raw cotton.
The term leaf includes dried, broken plant foliage, bark, and stem particles and can be divided into two general categories: large-leaf and pin or pepper trash. Pepper trash significantly lowers the value of the cotton to the manufacturer, and is more difficult and expensive to remove than the larger pieces of trash. Other trash found in ginned cotton can include stems, burs, bark, whole seeds, seed fragments, motes (underdeveloped seeds), grass, sand, oil, and dust. The growth environment obviously affects the amount of wind-borne contaminants trapped among the fibers. Environmental factors that affect pollination and seed development determine the frequency of undersized seeds and motes.
Reductions in the frequencies of motes and small-leaf trash also have been correlated with semi-smooth and super-okra leaf traits. Environment (crop year), harvest system, genotype, and second order interactions between those factors all had significant effects on leaf grade. Delayed harvest resulted in lower-grade fiber. The presence of trash particles also may affect negatively the color grade.
Fiber Color
Raw fiber stock color measurements are used in controlling the color of manufactured gray, bleached, or dyed yarns and fabrics. Of the three components of cotton grade, fiber color is most directly linked to growth environment. Color measurements also are correlated with overall fiber quality so that bright (reflective, high Rd), creamy-white fibers are more mature and of higher quality than the dull, gray or yellowish fibers associated with field weathering and generally lower fiber quality . Although upland cotton fibers are naturally white to creamy-white, pre-harvest exposure to weathering and microbial action can cause fibers to darken and to lose brightness.
Premature termination of fiber maturation by applications of growth regulators, frost, or drought characteristically increases the saturation of the yellow (+b) fiber-color component. Other conditions, including insect damage and foreign matter contamination, also modify fiber color.
The ultimate acceptance test for fiber color, as well as for finished yarns and fabrics, is the human eye. Therefore, instrumental color measurements must be correlated closely with visual judgment. In the HVI classing system, color is quantified as the degrees of reflectance (Rd) and yellowness (+b), two of the three tri-stimulus color scales of the Nickerson-Hunter colorimeter.
Fiber maturity has been associated with dye-uptake variability in finished yarn and fabric, but the color grades of raw fibers seldom have been linked to environmental factors or agronomic practices during production.
Other Environmental Effects on Cotton Fiber Quality
Although not yet included in the USDA-AMS cotton fiber classing system, cotton stickiness is becoming an increasingly important problem. Two major causes of cotton stickiness are insect honeydew from whiteflies and aphids and abnormally high levels of natural plant sugars, which are often related to premature crop termination by frost or drought. Insect honeydew contamination is randomly deposited on the lint in heavy droplets and has a devastating production-halting effect on fiber processing.
The cost of clearing and cleaning processing equipment halted by sticky cotton is so high that buyers have included honeydew free clauses in purchase contracts and have refused cotton from regions known to have insect-control problems. Rapid methods for instrumental detection of honeydew are under development for use in classing offices and mills.
Fiber quality or Fiber yield?
Like all agricultural commodities, the value of cotton lint responds to fluctuations in the supply-and-demand forces of the marketplace. In addition, pressure toward specific improvements in cotton fiber quality - for example, the higher fiber strength needed for today's high-speed spinning - has been intensified as a result of technological advances in textile production and imposition of increasingly stringent quality standards for finished cotton products.
Changes in fiber-quality requirements and increases in economic competition on the domestic and international levels have resulted in fiber quality becoming a value determinant equal to fiber yield. Indeed, it is the quality, not the quantity, of fibers ginned from the cotton seeds that decides the end use and economic value of a cotton crop and, consequently, determines the profit returned to both the producers and processors.
Wide differences in cotton fiber quality and shifts in demand for particular fiber properties, based on end-use processing requirements, have resulted in the creation of a price schedule, specific to each crop year, that includes premiums and discounts for grade, staple length, micronaire, and strength. This price schedule is made possible by the development of rapid, quantitative methods for measuring those fiber properties considered most important for successful textile production. With the wide availability of fiber-quality data from HVI, predictive models for ginning, bale-mix selection, and fiber-processing success could be developed for textile mills.
Price-analysis systems based on HVI fiber-quality data also became feasible. Quantitation, predictive modeling, and statistical analyses of what had been subjective and qualitative fiber properties are now both practical and common in textile processing and marketing.
Field-production and breeding researchers, for various reasons, have failed to take full advantage of the fiber-quality quantitation methods developed for the textile industry. Most field and genetic improvement studies still focus on yield improvement while devoting little attention to fiber quality beyond obtaining bulk fiber length, strength, and micronaire averages for each treatment. Indeed, cotton crop simulation and mapping models of the effects of growth environment on cotton have been limited almost entirely to yield prediction and cultural-input management.
http://textile-technology.blogspot.com/2007/11/improvements-in-cotton-fiber-properties.html
Plant physiological studies and textile-processing models suggest that bulk fiber-property averages at the bale, module, or crop level do not describe fiber quality with sufficient precision for use in a vertical integration of cotton production and processing. More importantly, bulk fiber-property means do not adequately and quantitatively describe the variation in the fiber populations or plant metabolic responses to environmental factors during the growing season. Such pooled or averaged descriptors cannot accurately predict how the highly variable fiber populations might perform during processing.
Meaningful descriptors of the effects of environment on cotton fiber quality await high-resolution examinations of the variabilities, induced and natural, in fiber-quality averages. Only then can the genetic and environmental sources of fiber-quality variability be quantified, predicted, and modulated to produce the high-quality cotton lint demanded by today's textile industry and, ultimately, the consumer.
Increased understanding of the physiological responses to the environment that interactively determine cotton fiber quality is essential. Only with such knowledge can real progress be made toward producing high yields of cotton fibers that are white as snow, as strong as steel, as fine as silk, and as uniform as genotypic responses to the environment will allow.
http://www.hindu.com
Design & Innovation
GM sets up design studio in Bangalore
Bangalore: The world's largest auto maker, General Motors, has opened a car design studio here signalling its increasing commitment to the Indian sub-continent.
General Motors's Vice-President for global design, Edward T. Welburn, told newspersons on Thursday that the new facility will be part of the GM Technical Centre located near Bangalore.
The design studio will have about 70 employees by the end of this year. It will be capable of supporting a global design strategy for the technical centre making it General Motors' centre of expertise for interior trim and component surfacing.
Welburn said it will take some time before the studio starts designing complete cars. "It will initially be like a listening post for us to gather and understand local product design requirements," he said.
With the addition of this studio, General Motors now has 11 such studios across the world. "By 2012, each of our product we make will have contribution from the Bangalore design studio," one of the officials of General Motors' said. The technical centre itself has about 1,900 employees currently.
Small car focus Welburn said one of the main focus of General Motors currently has been designing small cars. "There is more creativity in building small cars than ever before," he said.
Welburn said with the help from technologies such as clay milling capability, along with supporting equipment and virtual reality technology, the Indian design studio will contribute to the mid-cycle enhancement of existing models and the advanced design of future products. "This design centre will be an integral part of our future products," he said.
Young engineers should emerge as innovators
30 Oct, 2007, 0446 hrs IST, MV Ramsurya, TNN*
Puducherry (PTI): There is a need for young engineers to emerge as innovators as innovation holds the key to global leadership, a top official of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII - Southern Region), said on Saturday.
"The youth shold develop an awareness about what skills are needed in the emerging technological sector in the world at large," Subu D Subramanian, chairmam of CII (Southern Region), Information Communication Technology forum said.
They should prepare themselves to face future challenges and aspire to become leaders instead of merely being learners or providers of technology or services, he said.
Subramaniam said a scenario was now emerging where there would be a convergence of nano, bio and information technologies. The youth should therefore adapt themselves to emerging requirements, prepare themselves to face future challenges and aspire to become leaders, instead of merely being learners or providers of technology or services.
He was addressing students of various engineering colleges at a one-day 'Institute Industry Interface' programme organised by CII under the banner enabling e-talent initiative' at Pondicherry Engineering College here.
Subramaniam, also Director and Senior Vice-President of Satyam Computer Services Limited, said industries and institutions should collaborate to train youth for global needs.
Chairman of the Pondicherry chapter of CII C Chinnasamy who welcomed those present, said there was the inevitable augmentation of skills for students to match themselves with the futuristic demands in the IT sector.
As part of the interface, a panel discussion was held, in which experts from various companies and software organisations participated.
Agriculture
India, Canada to share farm technology
India and Canada have made substantial progress in discussing a proposed memorandum of understanding that will allow them exchange knowledge on farm science including harvest technologies and grain handling. Minister of State for Agriculture Kantilal Bhuria said this here today after having discussions with a Canadian delegation on the proposed MOU between the two countries. The Canadian delegation was headed by Barry Todd, Deputy Minister of Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural initiatives in the Province of Manitoba, Canada. Welcoming the delegation, Bhuria said India is deeply interested in promoting bilateral relations with Canada. Substantial progress has been made in the discussions on the proposed MOU between the two countries, he said.
After Canada initiated the proposal, Ministry of Agriculture has identified Knowledge Exchange in Agriculture, Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary issues and post Harvest technologies and grain handling as potential areas for fruitful cooperation, he added. The Minister recalled his visit to Canada in June 2007 and said he was inspired by the potential for collaboration in the field of agricultural research specially production technology in winter wheat and pulse for increasing productivity. Research in fruit sector specially apple production in branchless trees, packaging technologies to increase shelf life of vegetables such as tomatoes and these could be potential areas of India's interest, he said. He was also impressed with the grain storage program at Manitoba University. India is concerned about maintaining the quality of the stored grains, Bhuria said.
http://www.commodityonline.com
Food and Fruit Processing Industries will be focused for cogeneration and Energy Recovery
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy will promote technologies to promote productive utilization of biomass for production of energy in Food and Fruit Processing industries in the country. Inaugurating a regional awareness workshop on Energy recovery and cogeneration Projects in Food and Fruit processing industries today Sh. V. Subramanian, secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy said that the ministry has decided to apply special focus to urban industrial wastes. Sh. Subramanian informed that three main technologies are being promoted by the ministry for productive utilization of biomass are bagasse-based cogeneration in sugar mills, bio-mass power generation and bio-mass gasification for thermal and electrical applications. Now the ministry will focus on food and fruit processing industries. The technology is same, the efficiency will vary, and hence each industry will have to implant to get maximum benefits. Referring to solar heating system used for drier in chilly, papad and even condoms industries, he said that this renewable energy is doable, profitable and environment friendly.
The potential for cogeneration projects is estimated at 3500 MW of additional power generation from existing wastes from industries. He assured that the ministry is ready to give all technical support and interest subsidy. There is tremendous scope for captive power generation in the industries like dairies, starch, poultry, slaughter houses, oil extraction, breweries etc.
http://pib.nic.in
National Wine, Meat & Poultry Board will be set up
Minister of Food Processing Industries Shri Subodh Kant Sahai said that the proposed Food Regulatory Authority will be placed by the end of December this year, after which the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA) will become null and void on matters related to Food Processing. Addressing the Economic Editors Conference- 2007 he said that, India has a major role in the future of global food business as it has a strong base in agriculture and provides a large and varied raw material base for Food Processing Industry. He further said that National Wine and Meat Board will be set up in January 2008. Unveiling the future plans of the government in promoting the Food Processing Sector, the Minister explained that the center will identify SEZs and AEZs for setting up Mega Food Parks. This will help in sourcing food and vegetables from the farmers with lesser transaction cost.
The government will also draw up a 10 year plan to tap solar energy for the Food Processing Industry. The Minister stressed that the Food Processing Sector needs to be accorded equal emphasis as that of Agriculture. Shri Sahai said Food Processing Ministry has launched a 'food street' mission for 25 heritage lanes. The government will spend Rs. 5 crore on developing each heritage street and make changes to meet a certain standard. Technology knowledge and management will be the drivers of growth for food industry. The country has seen the era of Information Technology (IT) and Bio Technology (BT) and now the time has come for ushering the era of Food Technology (FT). Addressing the Conference Shri P. I. Suvarathan, Secretary Food Processing Industries said that keeping in mind the poor hygienic conditions of the abattoirs in the country the Government is planning to set up 25 abattoirs shortly. He said that Ministry will spend Rs. 48 crore for upgradation of Paddy Processing Research Centre, Thanjavur.
http://pib.nic.in
Innovation 'critical' for food industry
Innovation is becoming a critical factor for the food industry, an international forum was told in Dublin yesterday, November 20.
Enterprise Ireland executive director Mike Feeney said this was in terms of product development and emerging markets, as well as attracting more science graduates and new talent into the sector.
He said health and well-being, convenience and indulgence were key drivers in the global food industry. The food-fuel-feed debate will also influence future production, demand for raw materials and market share.
'Demand is also driven by technological advances in storage and distribution, packaging, shelf life, new product development and marketing,' he told the sixth world food technology and innovation forum.
'In addition, the growing power and influence of retail chains, multinational food companies and government programmes are also driving consumption patterns and demand.'
Mr Feeney said it was also evident that patterns of food consumption were becoming more similar globally with a shift to higher-quality, added value and more expensive foods such as meat and dairy products.
Also, the increasing adoption of western-style diets and foodservice outlets in developing countries was leading to a new generation of consumers and market growth opportunities.
The transition to supplying higher value-added food products represented significant market opportunities, he said, noting that Irish food companies were investing heavily in R&D.
'Enterprise Ireland assists processing operations to improve competitiveness and increase export capability as an ongoing process. As part of this process we are a significant investor in research and development. Our commitment to innovation underpins our vision to support the long-term development of the food processing sector in Ireland.'
Minister for Enterprise Micheál Martin, who opened the two-day forum, said the rapid changes taking place are critical to all food producing countries.
But this was particularly the case for Ireland where the food and drinks sector accounts for output valued at E18 billion, exports of E8bn and direct employment of 54,000 people.
http://www.biotechinfo.ie
London aims to become agri-food centre
Wed, November 21, 2007: By DEBORA VAN BRENK, SUN MEDIA
London is aiming to land two new food processing companies - bringing with them 150 new jobs — and adding another 50 jobs in existing agri-business by next year.
The London Economic Development Corp. (LEDC) is counting food processing one of its top two target sectors for growth in the next few years.
The huge automotive economy here "gets all the hype," said Keith Gibbons, president of London-based spice giant McCormick Canada.
But London jobs in agri-business put food on almost as many tables, a brainstorming group of people working in that sector was told today.
"It's a significant part of our economy and all expectations are that it will continue to grow at 10 percent over the next couple of years," Gibbons said.
He was chairperson of the meeting, the fourth of four round-table groups working to help London's economy grow.
The group included medical researchers, farmers, the mayor and representatives from London food processors such as corn-sugar refiner CASCO Inc.
And it brainstormed about specific ways to attract more agri-food companies and jobs to London. The goal, they said, is another 200 jobs by 2008.
Those factors include training more workers in areas such as process controllers; building on existing research-and-development building blocks; and making sure land is available.
Steve Glickman of the LEDC said the biggest advantage in having the round-table meetings is "cohesion" between and within sectors of London's economy.
"We have to be early adaptors (and) adopters of new technology and we have to be able to leverage new knowledge in a cohesive way."
Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best said growth in the industry is important to London's food chain - literally and economically. "We want to brand ourselves as an agricultural centre."
Gibbons said McCormick Canada alone has 500 employees and "absolutely" sees itself growing.
He was impressed with the diverse niches each member of the round-table group fills.
"Agriculture, food and health — it's all linked," Gibbons said.
Glickman said London sits in the heart of regional food production. And 70 per cent of food production is absorbed by processors, making the sector a dominant force on the local economic scene.
"A lot of it is common sense. You take a look at what you’ve got in the region, take your strengths and leverage them. You go with your strengths."
DeCicco-Best and others noted with surprise the group hadn't met as a sector before.
"Frankly, without the agricultural industry, as a province and as a community, we're in big trouble," the mayor said.
Coincidentally, the discussion paralleled a talk yesterday by a leading Canadian economist who told a London crowd of exporters London is ideally situated to take advantage of a growing agri-food trend.
Stephen Poloz, senior vice-president and chief economist with Export Development Canada, said the agri-food business will become a $10-billion-a-year industry in Ontario next year.
http://lfpress.ca
Biotechnology
Govt will set up Biotech Regulator
The Government has decided to set up a National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority, which would provide a single window mechanism for bio safety clearance of all genetically modified products and processes. "The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has been entrusted with the responsibility of setting up the authority and funding it," the Science and Technology Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, said here today, while launching the national biotechnology development strategy.
The Government has finalised the document after a two-year discussion with stakeholders. "The authority would be set up through a legislation, which should be ready in three months," Mr Sibal said, adding that the Bill is likely to be tabled in during the Budget session. The biotechnology development strategy, aiming to help the Indian biotechnology industry generate at least $7 billion annual revenue by 2010 against the present level of $2.3 billion, also lines up various schemes to promote specialised educational institutions. In order to promote the biotech industry, the Government has decided to invest up to 30 per cent of DBT’s budget in public-private partnership schemes by the end of XI Plan. The investments would promote innovation, pre-proof-of-concept research, accelerated technology and product development in biotechnologies related to agriculture, human health, animal productivity, bio-manufacturing and environment. To promote advanced technologies with long gestation periods where the private sector might be unwilling to invest, the Government has also decided to fund 30-50 per cent of project costs and let the private party retain the intellectual property – provided it pays a certain level of royalty to the contributing public sector scientists. During the XI Plan period, DBT is likely to be allocated Rs 6,500 crore against Rs 1,450 crore during the X Plan period.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com
Govt Okays National Biotechnology Development Strategy
The National Biotechnology Development Strategy has been approved by the Government, according to a release. Announcing this at a conference today, the Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Mr Kapil Sibal, said that recognising that biotechnology is a sunrise sector requiring focused attention, the Government has accorded approval for the broad framework of this strategy and the sectors proposed therein.
The strategy, while enabling full utilisation of currently available opportunities in manufacturing and services, will lay a strong foundation for discovery and innovation, effectively utilising novel technology platforms with potential to contribute to long-term benefits in agriculture, animal productivity, human health, environmental security and sustainable industrial growth. The strategy is the outcome of a two-year-long nationwide consultation process with multiple stakeholders including Ministries, Universities, research institutes, private sector, civil society, consumer groups, non-Government and voluntary organisations and international bodies. The draft strategy, which was posted on the Web, received over 300 comments from all sections of the society. The strategy has been finalised after careful scrutiny of these, the release added.
Details of the strategy are available on the Department of Biotechnology's Web site, http://dbtindia.nic.in.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com
Nanotechnology
MU poised to become leader in global nanotechnology
Nanotechnology may seem like the stuff of science fiction, but in mid-Missouri, the field is quickly becoming recognized as a promising component of the area's technology-driven economic development strategy.
"It is an exciting time," said Jim Thompson, dean of the University of Missouri's School of Engineering. "It's like in the 1960s with lasers and integrated circuits. Now we are at the beginning point with nanotechnology."
MU's race to develop nanotechnology is taking place not only in the School of Engineering but also in medicine, radiology, physics and other fields. Each academic area has its own assets to offer, and the key to MU’s progress seems to lie in their ability to collaborate.
"In nanotechnology, collaboration is the key, this is by far the best university in the country in terms of creating a collaborative environment." He said part of the reason MU is prioritizing nanotechnology is that, for now, there are fewer competitors and MU is positioned to take a leadership role. "We can't compete with Silicon Valley, for example, to become a major player in semiconductor development," he said. "But we have a real opportunity in nanotechnology." Commercializing nanotechnology advances is a frequent topic of discussion among administrators and scientists in the field.
"It is my hope that we will develop nanotechnologies that can be commercialized and turned into start-up companies here in Missouri,One example can be found, seemingly hidden away, in an off-campus facility on Columbia's Business Loop. There Kattesh Katti and Raghuraman Kannan, both on the faculty of MU's Department of Radiology and Physics, have founded two nanotechnology start-ups, Greennano Company and Nanoparticle Biochem., Inc. Either man has the credentials and experience to go anywhere in the world; both chose the University of Missouri because, they said, it offers the right combination of collaborative environment, technical facilities and leadership. "The combination is not available anywhere [else] in the world,"
Kannan and Katti are exploring ways to use nanoparticles—particles measured in terms of one billionth of a meter (it would take 100,000 nanoparticles to span the width of a human hair)—to diagnose and treat diseases such as breast cancer and prostate cancer. Their goal is to develop products that can be manufactured here in Missouri and marketed worldwide.
The two men are not alone at MU, working in an environment that spans several academic departments and representing a fast-growing field. Much of MU's nanotechnology effort resides at the Center for Micro/Nano Systems and Nanotechnology, run by Shubhra Gangopadhyay, recruited from Texas Tech University in 2003 to start the program. The center housed in the School of Engineering closely collaborates with other departments. "I was hired to build the center with the goal of bringing visibility to the college," Gangopadhyay said she has built a team of students and faculty who have gone beyond just working as an academic department. "We didn't want to just talk about it, so we set up a company," she said. "Part of our goal is to further economic development in Missouri. This is important to my students."
NEMS/MEMS Works, LLC is the MU-originated startup Gangopadhyay formed with other members of the MU community, including graduate student Steve Apperson. Gangopadhyay says the company is six months away from creating a prototype of its first device, an "advanced drug delivery system" designed to destroy tumors, kidney stones and ulcers and to treat cancer and HIV. She expects her team to be ready to start production a year from now but only if the scientists have the facilities they need.
Gangopadhyay and Apperson said that mid-Missouri lacks the high-tech facilities to produce their device and others. Among other things, for development and production they need "clean-rooms" — rooms that have essentially no dust or particles that would interfere with their work. Today, they have one small, 500-square-foot clean room and another "partially clean" room nowhere near the thousands of square feet they will eventually need. Adding the facilities they need will cost millions of dollars. "Programs like ours almost always have line-item priority in the state budget," Gangopadhyay said. "The state has done a lot for us, but we need money to do what we must do."
Fred Hawthorne, an internationally recognized nanotechnology pioneer recruited to MU in 2006 from the University of California-Los Angeles, said that the opportunity is too good to pass up. He said that, with the right resources, MU could be the leading nanotechnology center in the world
"I came here because the university has everything I need to do the work I want to do," he said. "My work is in Boron-neutron capture therapy. I created it and we'll be the center of that in the world. If you do the numbers on that, it gets into the billions of dollars in a few years. This is a very unique campus. If some of the things we are working on pay off, they will be the basis of new industries."
http://columbiabusinesstimes.com
Barnett: Build better fairy dust, suffer fewer bad actors
Scientific advances today are accomplished at the intersections of various fields, according to Frans Johansson's brilliant book, "The Medici Effect." Breakthroughs come when disparate disciplines collide in new ways. This innovation is readily seen in nanotechnology, or the creation and use of materials - even machines - at the atomic or molecular scale While the sexiest nanotechnology focuses on new applications, many possibilities exist to vastly improve existing techniques and procedures. I got a lesson on one such potential use recently at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which - by design - is sort of a Medici effect all its own, meaning the lab steers scientists from various fields into multidisciplinary efforts to solve vexing problems.
Being a strategy consultant to Oak Ridge, I'm like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to receiving briefings from lab scientists because - no matter the project - it's easy to imagine real-world applications ranging far beyond the subject at hand.
As an expert on globalization, I focus a lot on transparency, with my analytic mantra being, "connectivity drives code." By that I mean, the more you engage the larger world (connectivity), the more you become subject to rules (code).
Want to live all by yourself in a shack in the woods? That means fewer rules for you, because your code is simply shutting yourself off from the outside world. Want to travel all over this planet and engage in all sorts of commerce? That's going to mean a whole lot more rules apply, and with all those rules comes an abundance of transparency. You will be increasingly tracked, tagged and located by networks. But what if you're someone who believes in that more primitive, isolated life and you're willing to fight and kill and die to impose that choice on others? If that's your chosen ideology, then you will destroy other people's connectivity to keep that integrating world at bay. You'll live largely off the grid and engage global networks for the twin purposes of winning converts and sowing chaos. In short, you'll leave no traces, just destruction, so tracking you will be no mean trick. You're like a criminal who doesn't want to leave any fingerprints behind. Police have detected fingerprints at crime scenes for over a century to identify culprits. In the old days, the primary method involved spreading "fairy dust" (i.e., various powders) over surfaces suspected of containing fingerprints - hence "dusting for prints."
If the suspect left behind oily enough prints, the dust would stick to them and reveal identifying information. Your fingers get oily, for example, when you touch oily body parts like your face or hair. But say our suspect is more careful, washing his hands or using gloves or leaving prints solely on harder-to-dust surfaces, like certain metals or plastic bags or a victim's skin. By the late 1980s the new gold standard in lifting "cleaner" prints involved superheating special glue until it vaporized and could bond with the targeted fingerprint, creating a sort of protected cast visible to the naked eye. This technology was superior to dusting because it could reveal prints based on less residual material, interacting with base components such as amino acids and glucose. But this technology still suffered a time limit: the longer a print dried out, the fewer chemical components were left behind to react to the super glue. So today's cutting edge in fingerprinting involves boosting the signal, so to speak. You want to be able to compile an identifying print from the slimmest amount of biological residue left behind. Enter nanotechnology. By constructing new forms of dust employing nano-engineered shapes (e.g., rods, cubes, spheres, pyramids), scientists are figuring out how to enhance the most difficult-to-obtain fingerprints. These particles are used to shift the wavelength of light that is directed against targeted surfaces, resulting in an identifiable scattering signal.
Where can this go? How about a rape kit that lifts the perpetrator's prints off the victim's body? Or international inspectors scanning mass graves to gather evidence for a war crimes prosecution? Or - you get the idea. In this increasingly connected world, it's our inability to finger bad actors that - in the end - allows them to create the most terror. Make better fairy dust, crack tougher codes, connect more dots, create more transparency, and you've got fewer bad actors. In this global war, the smallest things will matter most.
http://dan92024.blogstream.com
Nanotechnology $1 Trillion Revenue
Nanotechnology revenues are estimated to reach $1 Trillion worldwide by 2015. It is often considered as a new revolution, as was the industrial revolution, because nanotechnology manipulates matter at the atomic scale to create new applications in materials, medicine, robotics, electronics and energy.
But what really is Nanotechnology? It's a field of applied science and technology which gives us the ability to build up things starting from the scale of an individual atom. This means the ability to manipulate materials so tiny that nothing can be built any smaller. Twenty year ago you could not have imagined the entire Encyclopedia being stored in a single memory stick, and today, can you imagine the same stored in a chip the size of a dust particle? When you divide one metre by one billion you get one nano. If you split bacteria into 200 equal parts, then one part equals one nanometre. This is the atom scale of the nanotechnology. When things are built at such a scale you get precision, strength, unique colours and a feel of creation rather than built. The idea was started in 1959 by a physicist Richard Feynman at American Physical Society meeting at Caltech.
There is still a long way to go to handle materials on a nano scale. Many scientists believe that within the next twenty year we will achieve a lot in this field. During that time we will have to establish techniques to move single atoms using nano robots machines operating at nanoscale and build large-scale structures. Like the invention of the wheel, there will be nano gears, bearings, motors, nano compiler, and nano multipliers and so on and so forth. About twenty years ago, IBM were able to position 35 xenon atoms on the surface of a nickel crystal using atomic force microscopy instrument which spelled out the word IBM. Since then, modern use has been in the manufacture of polymers based on molecular structure and design of surface science computer chip layouts. Commercially, nanotechnology is being applied in bulk nano-particles in manufacture of stain resistant clothing, protective coatings, suntan lotions, disinfectants, fuel catalysts and cosmetics.
As we stand now, nanotechnology is the new frontier and its potential impact is compelling. Huge amounts of funding are being spent by governments towards nanotechnology research and development. Like before, the main beneficially of such funding is Defence. New nanotech weapons and lightweight bullet-proof nanotech clothing are soon coming up. Once through with military superiority, then it will be released proper to the private sector. Here, there will be better uses that will include provision of clean water, greater agricultural production, cheap energy, clean environment, better diagnostics, drugs and organs replacements, greater information processing and storage, and reduced labour. When that time comes, you will be able to replace your car with an inexpensive nanotech car. A nanotech car will look like a creation of God or that has come from outer space.
With all the sweet promises that Nanotechnology has, including the potential to have positive effects on the environment, environmental and health risks will be the biggest challenges. These nana particles have very great surface area to volume ratio, and therefore toxic due to their high chemical reactivity and biological activity -- they can easily penetrate human skins and get entry to organs and tissues such as the kidneys, brain, spleen, heart, liver, and nervous system. And that coupled with the fact that these nanomaterials has a huge potential to cause DNA mutation, then, it is just a matter of time before opposing groups find the right opportunity to strike in saying no to the entire nanotechnology. And to the shrewd businessman and woman, you can only gamble in being ahead of everyone else in opportunities that are promising heaven
http://electric-electronic.blogspot.com
Nanotechnology automotive glass product from Nanotec performs in Canada
Left - treated with Nanoprotect AG. Right - untreated. Photo: ©Nanotec Pty Ltd Nanoprotect AG for automotive glass fromNanotec has been successfully used on car windscreens in Canada. Nanotec partner Répare Bris has been extensively using this product under the full range of Northern Hemisphere conditions, with stunning results.
Nanoprotect AG is a unique, transparent, water repellent nanotechnology treatment specifically developed for automotive glass. Nanoparticles adhere directly to the glass and assemble into an invisible, ultra-thin, three dimensional mesh which provides a hydrophobic (water repelling) surface. The glass maintains its original clarity, while being protected against the elements. Water runs off easily from the treated surface and most dirt particles are washed off by rain or when rinsed with water.
Nanoprotect AG has been widely tested on car windscreens over a number of years, in a range of environmental conditions around the world. The extensive testing under those conditions has shown that the product will last for up to 2 years or at least 30,000 km. In one Northern Hemisphere test the Nanotec product is still working well after 70,000km.
"Being in the windscreen repair business, I have been searching for the last 4 years for a product to aid in driver vision during inclement weather, and while I had come across many good products I had yet to find an exceptional one, until now. Many a hydrophobic treatment exists, but none with the efficiency and durability of Nanoprotect AG, and I have tested just about anything that could be used as a hydrophobic treatment,"
"The safety aspect of the Nanoprotect AG product cannot be overstated. After application of this product to car windscreens, visibility in the wet improves to the point where most of the time you do not need to use the wipers," stated Dr. Gary Day, Nanotec General Manager.
Nanoprotect AG protects exterior glass, car windows, car windscreens, external mirrors, glass sunroofs, and glass headlights.
http://www.infolink.com.au
Nanotechnology means big changes for memory
Memory and storage devices have new competition from ASU with technology that could outdate the most common forms of existing memory devices, according to University researchers. ASU's Center for Applied Nanoionics received a patent last week for a technology worth millions of dollars, said Michael Kozicki, a professor of electrical engineering and the director of CANi"(We) jumped to the next level in many respects as far as storage density is concerned,"
The patented technique, which is CANi's 25th U.S. patent, is projected to produce a new memory chip using existing materials to make a product that is 1,000 times as energy-efficient as flash memory, The technology would revolutionize iPhones and other mobile technology devices that use flash memory, the technology works by putting several layers of memory cells on top of each other. All of the memory cells that are built today are built in one layer, layering memory would make it possible to put more than 100 times the memory in the same amount of space as is used today, it was difficult to make projections on when the technology would be available in stores, but the first products would be available in about 18 months. "We'll see the more tough stuff in excess of three years.
Three companies had already been licensed to use the technology, and discussions were going on with about six other companies. "There are others using it without a license," Erik Fisher, an associate research professor at the Consortium for Science Policy and Outcomes, said it was difficult to make any predictions regarding the use of nanotechnology to increase storage and memory. "It depends on which group of people you're asking,". "It would be possible at this stage to project positive and negative implications." Sociology senior Daniel Baca said he wasn't surprised to hear about CANi's breakthroughs in storage and memory. It's likely that products using the technology will be released slowly, instead of giving consumers the increased storage and memory all at once. He added that the technology would be beneficial to people who buy products like iPods and other mobile devices.
"It's good as far as the consumer is concerned,"
http://www.asuwebdevil.com
New Magnet Design Sheds Light on Nanotechnology and Semiconductor Research
Engineers at Florida State University's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory have successfully tested a groundbreaking new magnet design that could literally shed new light on nano science and semiconductor research.
When the magnet - called the Split Florida Helix - is operational in 2010, researchers will have the ability to direct and scatter laser light at a sample not only down the bore, or center, of the magnet, but |
