One aspect of the desire to improve the quality of the Australian cotton crop is to introduce new fibre quality imstrumentation to supplement the current Mircronaire measurement. In previous CRDC funded projects, CSIRO has been developing the Cottonscan instrumentation to directly measure the average fibre fineness or linear density of a cotton sample.

During the two year period coverd by the project, in response to industry feedback, the Cottonscan technology has been significaintly upgraded to improve the measurment time. The five existing Cottonscan instruments (Three at CSIRO, and two in research laboratories in the US) were upgraded. Comparative trials demonstrated that the performance of the instrument was not compromised by the technical upgrade.

A number of spining trial in commercial Chinese mills demonstrated that the data available from the Cottonscan measurement is valuable to the spinner in its superior ability compared to current measurements (HVI micronaire), to predict yarn quality.

Finally, during this period a commercial license to manufacture and sell Cottonscan instruments has been granted to an Australian company. The company, Cottonscope Ltd, have displayed prototype commericial instruments at a number of international trade fairs and conferences.