The document discusses different plant fibers used for textiles, including cotton, jute, and flax. It provides details on the classification, origin, cultivation, and processing of these fibers. Cotton is obtained from the seeds of cotton plants and is the most important agricultural commodity. Jute comes from plants in the genus Corchorus and is a very inexpensive fiber. Flax has been cultivated for thousands of years and produces strong fibers through retting and hacking processes.

1. FIBER YEILDING PLANTS
By Anjali Kalia

2. Classification Of Fibers On The Basis Of Nature And Structure
Bast Fibers Structural Fibers Surface Fibers
Associated with Phloem,
Pericycle and cortex.
Strands of small, short
lignified cells ensheathing
both Xylem and Phloem.
Borne on the surface of Stems,
Leaves, Fruits and Seeds.
Derived from
dicotyledonous plants.
Found scattered in the
leaves of
monocotyledonous plants.
Obtained from a great
diversity of plants.
Usually separated by
‘Retting’
Separated by mechanical
scraping.
Separation done by Ginning.
Examples- Flax, Jute,
Hemp, Kenaf etc.
Examples-Manila hemp,
Sisal, New Zealand hemp.
Example-Cotton, Kapok.

4. Gossypium spp.
 It is world’s most important non-food agricultural commodity.
 It was one of the first vegetable fibers used for textile
purposes.
 The fiber is obtained from the surface of the seeds.
 The production of cotton is greater than that of all other
fibers put together.
 Cotton has been under cultivation since ancient times in two
widely separated continents:
• South Asia
• Central America
Family: Malvaceae

5.  Excavations in Mohanjo-Daro (Indus Valley) by Gulati and
Turner (1928) revealed the occurrence of cotton in the form
of strings and fragment of cloth covering the household
articles, which archaeologists date to about 3000 B.C.
 The existence of cotton threads has also been mentioned in
the Rig Veda (Oldest scripture of the Hindus, written about
1500 B.C.).
 From India cotton was introduced eastward to China and
westward to Egypt around 600 A.D.
 Arabs introduced it to the African continent and later on, it
was introduced to Europe.

6. Systematics, Origin And Distribution
 Hutchinson et al. (1947) recognized 20 species of the genus
Gossypium.
 The different species are grouped into 8 sections, of which 2 are
commercially important.
 All wild species of cotton are diploid with n=13 chromosomes.
 There are 16 Wild species and 4 cultivated species of cotton.
 The four cultivated species have large no. of varieties and hybrid
forms and can be classified as:
• The American or New World cottons
• The Asiatic or Old World cottons

8.  The New World cotton is represented by G. hirsutum and G.
barbadense .
 THE Old World cotton is represented by G. arboreum and G.
herbaceum .
 Species of these two sections are genetically distinct and do not
form natural hybrids.
 The cultivated Asiatic forms of section Herbacea have 13 pairs
of large chromosomes and are designated by genome A. These
have never been reported growing in New World.
 The species includes in section Klotzchiana are also diploid but
contain 13 pairs of small chromosomes, designated by genome
D .These are distributed only in the New World.

9.  Tetraploid cottons of section Hirsuta, have 26 pair of
chromosomes, of which 13 pairs are large (similar to Old World
cotton with genome A) and 13 are small (similar to New World
cotton with genome D).
 On the basis of this information , it is believed that the
tetraploid cottons of section Hirsuta have evolved through
accidental hybridization between Asiatic diploids and American
diploids, followed by doubling of chromosome number.

10. Species Common name Place of Origin Chromoso
me no.
Distribution/Grown
G. arboreum Ceylon Cotton Old World
(Indo-China)
13 India, Myanmar,
Malaysia, China, Korea,
Japan and extending too
Africa.
G. herbaceum Levant Cotton Old World
(tropical Africa &
Egypt)
13 China, Indonesia, India,
Pakistan, Iran, Iraq,
Turkey, Greece, Africa.
G. barbadense Sea-Island Cotton New World
(South America)
26 West Indies, Fiji, North
Florida, Georgia and
southern California.
G. hirsutum Upland Cotton New World
(Mexico &Central
America)
26 Turkestan, South Brazil,
Uganda, Africa, Iraq ,
parts of China, Turkey,
Greece, Manchuria, India,
Australia.

12.  Harvesting begins about six months after sowing and it the most
expensive operation of cotton cultivation .
 Cotton is picked as soon as the ball opens.
 Handpicking is done in many parts of the world where cheap
labor is easily available.
 In western sub-humid parts of the world where labor is very
scarce, mechanical harvesters which work on the principle of
suction as used.
 For successful harvesting, it is necessary to defoliate plants by
spraying chemicals such as calcium cynamide, which also forces
all capsules to ripens simultaneously.

13.  Before raw cotton is spun into yarn and woven into cloth, it
must pass through a number of processes.
 Ginning
 After the removal of dirt, boll and leaf fragments, and other
foreign matter, the raw cotton is conveyed to the hopper of a
gin of either roller or saw type.
 Roller type gin is employed to Sea-Island and Egyptian cottons,
whereas Saw type gin is used for American upland and Asiatic
cottons.
 Baling: fiber that comes after ginning is pressed hydraulically
into bales of 500 pounds (226kg).

14.  Picking
• Baled cotton is at first broken and the fibers are then passed through a
‘scutcher’ where they are beaten, shaken and rolled to remove all foreign
matter and the strands are separated and delivered in a uniform layer.
• At the last picking machine, the cotton is condensed into a sheet form
called ‘lap’.
 Carding
• It helps to place the fibers parallel and also helps in removal of immature
fibers and impurities.
 Combing and drawing or drafting
• Short fibers are removed during combing, and during drawing process
fibers are straightened and aligned.
• It is customary to apply two drawing operations after carding and two
after combing.
• The fleecy lap is condensed through a funnel into a soft twisted rope or
‘silver’. It is further drawn out, slightly twisted and wound on spools.

15. Family: Tiliaceae
 Jute is the least expensive, but most important of all bast fibers.
 It comes second in production among all the natural fibers.
 The fiber is obtained from the stems of the two cultivated species of
Corchorus , namely C. capsularis L. (White Jute) and C. oliotorius ( Tossa
Jute).
 The early history of jute is not definitely known .
 The genus Corchorus consists of about 40 species, of which 36 have been
recorded in Africa.
 According to Kundu (1959) , the primary center of origin of C. oliorius is
Africa with a secondary center in India or Indo-Burma.
 At one time in it was monopoly crop of India which produced 99 percent
of the world’s production.

16. JUTE PLANTATION

17.  Plants are harvested when nearly 50 percent of them are
fruiting.
 At this stage both the yield and quality are good.
 Early harvesting is likely to give a poor and return and the
fiber lacks strength, although it has a good white color.
 Late harvesting on the other hand increases yield but
produces coarse fibers.
 Plants are close to the ground with a sickle or pulled out by
hand when growing under water.
 In flooded areas particularly in many parts of Assam and
Bangladesh where the flood water rises very high, the cutters
often have to dive under water to cut the stem.

18. Location of fibers
The fibers occur in long wedge-shaped bundles
outside the xylem.
They are grouped in concentric rings alternating
with the thin walled tissue of the phloem which
disintegrates during retting.
Each of the fiber bundles represents one strand
(reed).
The individual fiber cells are seldom longer than 2
or 3 mm.

19. Processing
 The bundles of stems are taken to the nearest stagnant pool
or ditch and laid flat in waters arranged side by side so as to
make a regular platform.
 Another layer of bundles is placed on top at right angles to
the first.
 A third or fourth layer of bundles may sometimes be added if
the water is deep.
 The surface of the bundles is covered with weeds and then
heavily loaded with stones, bricks, logs of wood etc. to keep
them submerged.
 The retting process usually takes 10-30 days.

20.  At first the root ends are beaten with wooden mallet to loosen
the fibers.
 Retting is considered complete when the bark can be easily
peeled off.
 Then the free ends are wrapped firmly around the fingers and
stems are jerked backward and forward in water thereby
separating the fibers from the stick.
 They are spread out in the sun on bamboo racks for two to
three days and rolled into bundles.

21. Family: Linaceae
 Flax is one of the oldest cultivated plants known to mankind.
 The place of origin of Flax is not known, but it has been
cultivated since prehistoric times in two main geographical
areas- The coastal land of the Mediterranean & Southwest Asia.
 The best quality Flax comes from Belgium and other adjoining
countries with a damp sea climate such as Netherlands and
France.
 Flax is an annual plant with a slender stem, greyish green in
color, bearing alternatively placed small ovate or lanceolate
leaves.

22. FLAX PLANT

23. Harvesting
 The harvesting operation is done when the lower two-thirds
of the stem have turned yellow and the leaves have fallen off.
 Unlike other fiber crops, flax plants are pulled from the field
instead of being cut.
 The fibers occur in discreate groups or aggregates of many
cell in the pericycle, each pericycle consisting of ten to forty
individual fibers.
 The number of such fibrous bundles is about 30, arranged in
a circular ring around the vascular zone.

24. Processing
 The harvested plants are generally left in the field to dry for 2-3 days.
 The process of extracting the fibers involves four steps: rippling, steeping
or ‘retting’, scutching and hackling.
 Rippling- dried Flax is stripped of all leaves and capsules with least
possible damage to the stem and fiber.
 Retting-denuded stems are immersed in a water tank for several days. The
retted stems are then dried either by artificial means or by spreading it in
the field to prevent further fermentation.
 Scutching-Fibers are removed from the internal woody core.
 Hackling-the short and tangled fibers constituting the ‘tow’ are separated
from the long fibers with the help of hackling machines. The long
unbroken fibers are called line fibers.