LAUSR

Abstract The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China accounted for 73% of China's total cotton production in 2014. However, Xinjiang's cotton is difficult to market due to poor lint quality and become increasingly acute. The objectives of this study were to determine changes of fiber quality and to investigate the reasons for poor lint quality in the Xinjiang Region. Field production conditions and harvesting methods caused more variability in fiber damage than cleaning processes. Under field production conditions, fiber strength of 35% of the cultivars was reduced by more than 2 cN/tex and fiber length of 12% was reduced by more than 2 mm machine harvesting reduced fiber length by more than 2 mm at 17% of the experimental sites. Cleaning processes caused fiber damages that fiber quality reduced one to two units accounted for 84% of samples. Cotton fiber damage as influenced by field production conditions, harvesting methods, and cleaning processes. But field production conditions increased fiber strength of 27% of the cultivars compared with variety trial reports, machine harvesting increased fiber length and fiber strength at 48% and 33% of the experiment sites compared with hand harvesting. The crucial point about the phenomenon was that how to reduce the foreign matter content of machine harvested cotton.