Peter Bunce, Australian Classing Services, reports on the classing results for the 2005 season.

Peter, could you give us an overall view of the fibre quality for this past season?

Sure Rob, I guess at the start of the season we were all, classers, get very nervous before the pickers go in, the lie detectors go in. Especially this year with prices the way they were but this year has been, its been a really good quality year. We have noticed that quality has dropped off a bit lately from the start of the season but still is a very good quality year overall. The grades, I guess with the recent bit of rain, has seen a few more lower grades coming through but nothing of any concern.

Would they be crops that have been picked after the rain or just the fact that there is more moisture in the air affecting the modules that are already picked?

Yes, a bit of both. The later picked stuff, the bolls are more exposed to the elements, just even sunshine tends to bleach that really good quality out and the dew and a bit of moisture in there. But even the stuff that was picked, you know as you’re classing we will see good grades coming through and the module ends, you might get a couple of bales of light spot around the modules and then good grades again.

Going into a little bit more detail, how do the grades compare this year to previous years?

They compare fairly well. This year at the start of the season we are looking at about 90%, in May we were looking at 90% was premium which is just unseen before. It has dropped off a little bit. We are probably looking at about 70% in that 21-3 or higher category which is still very good and we are, as far as base grade middling go, we are looking at about 26, 27% which has sort of fallen a bit like it was increased a bit from about 10% in May.

Looking at more of the fibre properties, what about micronaire this year, how have they been?

Micronaire has probably been the most improved fibre quality from the last couple of years. We are looking in that premium 3.8-4.5 range we are looking at about 1/3 of what we are seeing in that range so that’s 66% and then the bulk of the remainder has been that 4.6-4.9 category. As far as high mic goes, we are seeing around .5% which is a marked improvement on last year.

What about fibre lengths?

Fibre length has also been pretty good. There has been a little bit of concern, there has been a little bit of 35 staple around but nothing too worrying. We are looking at probably about 50% of what we are seeing has been 37 staple and higher which is amazing and yet 36 staple we are seeing like sort of 27% and then about 12% 35 staple.

Strength, any problems there?

Strength has been fantastic, no problems there at all. I think 95% has been, around 95% has been above 28 grams per tex and of that about 50% has been above 30 grams per tex so, no problems there.

Just honing in on some of the varieties a little bit, there has obviously been a reasonable amount of interest in the Sicot 71 family and that’s available in the range of different technologies now. Have you got any comments specifically about its fibre quality?

Sicot 71 has created a lot of attention. We have had a lot of people asking questions. As far as grade, micronaire and strength go its been fantastic. It has been up there with the best performing varieties. The staple length particularly on the conventional has been a little bit shorter than some of the other varieties.

The one that will probably be of most interest would be the 71BR. So what you are saying is its worked out a little bit longer than the 71 conventional?

It has, yes, we have sort of noticed that the BR, the 35 staple have been roughly around 20% which is not too much different than the overall average which was about 12% whereas the conventional is a bit more higher percentage of 35 staple.

That fits in pretty well with our own data in trials and things.

Yes.

Any difference between Bollgard®’s and conventionals then that have stood out in that time?

You do see a little bit. Its hard to, generally speaking, we do notice that the Bollgard® varieties tend to have a little bit longer staple than the conventional in its family. But also has a slightly higher micronaire. But nothing, its not a major difference but that is sort of the trend that we have noticed.

The other thing that might be of interest, this coming season, there may well be quite a bit of dryland cotton grown, have you got any comments on what the dryland quality was like?

Very hard for me to speak about that because we don’t actually distinguish between dryland and irrigated. We sort of class blindly. But, we haven’t noticed any major quality differences, I haven’t noticed a lot of short staple or anything coming through so it must mean its doing pretty well this year. There have been patches around that have been a little bit rough but overall it’s been pretty good I think.

Further Information: 
Dr Stephen Allen, Robert Eveleigh, John Marshall,  Craig McDonald, David Kelly or James Quinn