Project Number: 6435-44000-070-08
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Oct 01, 2007
End Date: Sep 30, 2008

Objective:
The overall objective of the SCA is to conduct research and design instrumentation for new or improved cotton fiber analyses. The specific objectives of this SCA are 1) to determine the ability of advanced instrumentation (spectroscopic, etc.) to monitor key cotton fiber properties in the laboratory, at-line, and in the field; 2) to investigate relationships between color results from the HVI and several new/ improved fiber color measurement systems, to include the impact of key instrumental and measurement variables, and determine the potential for developing color ¿standards¿; and 3) to determine the effect of changes in environmental conditions on key cotton fiber measurements, establish the moisture measurement capabilities of a comprehensive set of instruments, and investigate the impact of fiber moisture on cotton structure and fiber properties. The Agreement will be reviewed for possible extension in 2008.

Approach:
The SCA will consist of research and design instrumentation for new or improved cotton fiber analyses in three primary areas¿advanced sensor/spectroscopy analyses (NIR, etc.), fundamental and applied color investigations (spectrophotometers, image analysis, IsoTester, etc.), and moisture analyses and instrumentation. The developed methods, systems/protocols, and evaluated instrumentation in this research will establish the ability of advanced instrumentation to monitor critical cotton fiber properties of breeder samples in the laboratory, at-line, and in the field; lead to the establishment of correlations/algorithms for color results between HVI and advanced color measurement instrumentation; determine the feasibility of ¿traceable¿ standards for cotton color measurements; improve the fundamental knowledge and understanding of the cotton fiber moisture-structure-fiber properties relationships; determine the feasibility of improved, precise moisture measurement methods; and lead to algorithms/protocols to predict and/or minimize the impact of varying moisture on HVI and other advanced instrumentation fiber results. In order to obtain accurate and precise measurements of fiber quality, the relationship between the typical fiber analyses of interest and new spectroscopy/color/moisture techniques has to be established. The results from the developed techniques and fundamental studies will be compared using statistics/statistical modeling/chemometrics to results from standard cotton fiber quality measurements and instrumentation (e.g., HVI). Once completed, the impacts of cotton variety, field, and environmental variables and interactions on the results can be evaluated.