Miniature Spinning: An Improved Cotton Research Tool

Cotton is a natural fiber and is highly variable. Researchers need to evaluate cotton fiber properties to aid in the development of improved varieties and to ensure that changes in agronomic practices do not harm fiber quality or processing propensity. There is a need for fiber quality evaluation beyond laboratory testing which has primarily been designed to assign a value to cotton for trade purposes. The amount of material available to researchers for evaluation is often limited. It is not possible to spin these small samples using conventional processing techniques and machinery. This limitation has led to the development of miniature-scale spinning systems. The objective of this study was to review previously developed miniature processing systems and to introduce an improved system that addresses the weaknesses of previous systems. Commercially available equipment was modified to develop a new miniature spinning system. The newly developed miniature scale processing system was used to convert fiber into quality ring spun yarn. Data were collected to verify the performance of the new system. Depending on the fiber quality, different yarn qualities were produced. The newly developed miniature spinning system processed small cotton samples more efficiently and produced better quality yarn than previous miniature-scale systems.