Preparation and Dark Fibre Contamination

This paper has been reproduced from the original source document using Optical Character Recognition software to convert printed text into electronic format. The source documents are no longer in print. The papers cover work into dark fibre measurement and risk assessment conducted by CSIRO's Textile and Fibre Technology Division , when it was located at Ryde, NSW. It has been necessary to reformat the document and hence the page numbering and layout is no longer identical to the original, but the text is identical, except where obvious errors have been corrected. 

Abstract

To illustrate some aspects of breeding and husbandry and their implications for clip preparation of Australian wools results from measurements made at CSIRO (Ryde) on tops coming from two different sources are presented.

The first set of tops came from fifteen mill batches for which of component lots that made up each batch are available. The second set of tops were made from some specially selected lines of clips.

The dark fibre results discussed were derived from measurements made by a method developed by CSIRO for this purpose.

A background to the dark fibre problem as it impinges on clip preparation, is discussed. The method developed to detect and classify dark fibres in tops made from the two sources is described.  The results obtained are used to demonstrate to what extent two types of dark fibres, originating on the sheep, contribute to the clip preparation story.

The discussion is retricted to pigmented and urine-stained fibres.

Citation

"Preparation and Dark Fibre Contamination", Foulds R.A.,Seminar Proceedings: Clip Preparation Research, CSIRO Division of Textile Physics & Australian Wool Corporation (Research & Development), April 1983