Cotton Fiber Micronaire and Relations to Fiber HVI and AFIS Qualities Between Deltapine® and PhytoGen Upland Varieties

Cotton micronaire (MIC) is an essential fiber quality index that characterizes both fiber maturity and fineness components. This study compared how MIC affects the fiber high volume instrument (HVI) and advanced fiber information system (AFIS) qualities between Deltapine® and PhytoGen upland varieties. There were noticeable differences among HVI and AFIS qualities from Deltapine® fiber samples and PhytoGen samples, with significant differences om HVI strength and elongation. MIC development benefited fiber HVI strength enhancement and also HVI short fiber index (SFI), AFIS neps, AFIS short fiber contents, and AFIS immature fiber content (IFC) reduction, all of which were desired. Adversely, MIC evolution could cause undesired HVI Rd lowering, HVI +b boosting, and AFIS UQL(w), and a decrease in L5%(n) in fiber. Further, MIC values were not related with lint turnout, but they were positively and greatly correlated with algorithmic MIR values of the attenuated total reflection in Fourier transform infrared (ATR FT-IR) spectra. The results demonstrated the applicability of the ATR FT-IR technique combined with the MIR approach for rapid laboratory MIC assessment at early MIC testing in remote/breeding locations.