Cotton History, Culvitation & Harvesting :

Cotton

History of cotton

Cotton is the oldest and most important  textile fiber in the  world. Historians can hardly trace cotton is its true origin.  The best we know is that the English word “cotton ”  is derived from the Arabic word Katan (qutn,kuteen) .Each cotton fiber is a unicellular hair collected from the seed of the cotton plant. Cotton plant belongs to the order Malvales , the family Malvaceae , the tribe Gossypieae, and the genus Gossypium. It grows in sub-tropical climates . Most of the cotton is cultivated in Asia ,Africa, American,Egypt,Indian and other places.

Nearly 90% of the cotton fibres are cellulose.The cellulose of cotton fibres is also of the highest molecular weight among all plants fibres and highest structural order ,e g, highly crystalline, oriented  and fibrillar.

Cotton is by far the backbone of world’s Textile Trade. Cotton is grown in more than 80 countries worldwide. Its current market share is about more than 50% for all fibres used for the apparel and home furnishing.

Cotton Culvitation & Harvesting :

The cultivitation of cotton tress and the growing condition is not the same according to the climate and temperature of the cultivation land. For its cultivation ,6-7 months hot climate , sufficient sunlight and humidity are requried.  The different steps of cotton cultivation are given sequence below:

1.       Seed are sown in spring.

2.       They sprout after 2/3 weeks.

3.       After 2-3 months of sprouting ,plant flowers bloom.

4.       The flowers fall off after a few days and leaving cotton balls.

5.       Seed hairs starts to grow inside the balls ,one cotton ball has about 5-10 adzuki bean  like cotton fruits.

6.       For 11-18days , fiber length and other parameters are achieved.

7.       For the text 22-50 days .cellulose is deposited inside the fiber

8.       When cellulose deposition  is stopped ,the balls become dry  and burst naturally and the cotton appears as a soft wad of fine fiber

9.       The balls are picked up manually  or by machine  , this picking period continue for 1-3 for months.

10.   Finally the balls are taken for ginning to collect the fibers.