The commonly used Micronaire value for cotton is related to both fibre fineness and

maturity. 'RDC and the CCC CRC have been funding work at CSIRO Textile and Fibre

Technology to develop new technologies to measure fibre finess and maturity separately

i.e. to overcome the deficiency in the micronaire measurement. One difficulty is that there

are no internationally recognized standard cotton samples that can be used for calibrating

new instrumentation. Researchers at the CSDA and Texas Tech University have tackled this

problem by coordinating the development of a standardised set of cotton samples specifically

for this purpose.

The broad aim of the project is that CSIRO would collaborate with the two US groups and act

as a third independent test laboratory to validate the procedures and results obtained in the

US. This is particularly important as it is envisaged that the set of well characterised cottons

with their assigned values of fibre maturity and fineness will last for in excess of 10 years as

the primary calibration internationally for all other 'new' techniques for measuring cotton

fineness and maturity.

The project has been extremely successful. Working in collaboration with the US groups the

Australian initiative has identified a significant systematic error in the results obtained by the

US groups. The cause of the error has been identified. It relates to the limited resolution of

the techniques being employed to image the cotton fibres. Further an alternative approach

has been identified to overcome this problem.