Image analysis on cotton fiber cross sections: Relationships with afis® measurements and yarn quality

The acknowledged reference method for maturity and fineness measurements on cotton is image analysis of the fiber's cross-sections. However, this technique is too slow to be of practical use in commercial operations or plant breeding programs. The AFIS® instrument is fast enough and repeatable enough to provide the necessary information-if it relates well with the image analysis data. Previous work has demonstrated the usefulness of fiber length distribution data from the AFIS for yarn quality predictions (hequet & Ethridge, 2000). This article reports on an evaluation of the relationships among the fineness-maturity measurements obtained with the AFIS and those obtained with image analysis (IA) of the cotton fiber cross-sections.