The potential for cotton as a raw material for technical textiles will be enhanced if the strength of cotton is improved.

Speaking to this scribe on the sidelines of the 7th edition of the Advances in Textiles, Machinery, Nonwovens and Technical Textiles, international conference organized by Texas Tech University, USA and Coimbatore, India based Kumaraguru College of Technology in the textile city, Coimbatore, India octogenarian Mr. Arunachalam Subramaniam, veteran textile consultant with over 60 years of experience in the textile field advised that the cotton industry should look at developing high strength short staple cottons for industrial applications. Such cottons with staple length of 25.4 to 27 mm with tenacity of 30 g/tex will be ideal for technical textiles. He mentioned that high strength extra-long staple and short staple cottons will find premium use and sale values.

According to Mr. Subramaniam, high strength extra-long staple cotton with tenacity in the range of 33-35 g/tex is in the pipeline. He added, cotton breeders should enhance the strength of short staple cottons from its present level of 21 g/tex to 30 g/tex. Such high tenacity cottons will be fitting for high performance applications and will benefit cotton farmers.