This project has part funded maintenance of HVI900 and FMT3 cotton fibre testing instruments in CSIRO’s fibre testing laboratory at ACRI for the 2005/06 season. The laboratory supports measurements of fibre quality from cotton experiments in CSIRO’s breeding program and research projects by other organisations and projects.

More than 20,000 samples were tested by HVI and 10,000 samples by FMT.

Global cotton production and market dynamics indicate Australia needs a future edge with fibre quality to ensure buyers will want our cotton in preference to our competitors. This means developing varieties, management and processing to ensure we deliver better fibre. There may be opportunities for premium fibre products in future. Thus the CSIRO cotton breeding program raised the emphasis on developing improved fibre varieties to address these needs.

Negative associations between yield and fibre quality present challenges for variety development. We have accurately measured these associations and developed breeding population sizes to ensure the rare combinations of high yield and quality can be identified. Accurate measurement of fibre quality is an important component of that work.

A number of new breeding lines have been developed to address the objective of improved fibre quality and at high yield levels. In addition there are lines with excellent fibre properties to potentially target speciality (premium) markets. These lines are under further evaluation and are also used in developing speciality Bollgard®II varieties. Sicala 350B, released in 2005, has very long fibre and is attracting interest in the market. We have identifies possible superior lines of this type.