Cotton research history?

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Cotton research history?

michel

World Cotton Day As we have been recently recalled, ICAC has launched the initiative of declaring October 7 as the World Cotton Day. Hopefully, in a couple of days, it will become the new UN World Cotton Day and give us some pride in working on cotton. For sure, the World Cotton Day will be celebrated at various cotton research organizations al...

See full post on: http://www.icracotton.org/posts/cotton-research-history

venugopalan

Thank you for the post.
Perhaps something like innovations/innovators that/who changed the course of history of cotton in the respective country would be good. The essence is to connect the present and next generations to events/ persons of the pre-digital era that/who made disruptive impact on cotton production and/or processing.

michel

venugopalan So, in your country, do you have any innovation/innovator to suggest? Or even for the whole world, what were the innovations/innovations per decade that have accounted?

hooshmandh

1- Wild cotton
2- Domestication (Old and new world)
3- Cotton good s previlieage (1916) and accepting "Cotton as a world power"
4- Late 18th century British cotton industrial revolution (Spinning, wheels and loomed)
5- American first white revolution (Whitney,s gin)
6- Second white revolution (Modern spinning technology- 1790)
7- Development of fiber evaluation
8- Harvesting machines progress.

michel

hooshmandh Interesting. I nevertheless would suggest to focus on cotton excluding textile industry. I also believe that the more specific we can be in the identification of the topics, the easier we would get members volunteering to write on.

Graham

Professor Tom Miller at Riverside University of California and myself have been urging various people in different countries to write an account of cotton growing in their country. We hope to complete the book later this year - it should provide some interesting history of how the crop is grown in different continents. We are however on the way to changes, including more expansion of genetic engineering to increase resistance to insect pests and diseases as well as changes in how pesticides are applied when necessary. Already in China, many small scale growers are adopting spraying by using an unmanned vehicle i.e. a drone to spray their crops to avoid walking through the crop with a heavy sprayer on their back to apply a pesticide.
Graham Matthews, Imperial College, UK

efh

I like the idea of a book on cotton research history. It would be such a big undertaking that it may be best to think about a "World Cotton Research History" series. Each book in the series would concentrate on a specific country or region. The main chapters would be the same in each book. It would cover all aspects of cotton production (sustainability, seed production, diseases, insects, etc), harvesting and ginning technologies, classification, marketing of the crop, transformation (from bale to shirt).

michel

efh Please note that our website encompasses a wiki functionality enabling us to write as many books as we may want. Click on "wiki" on the left panel and you will see two books I have just created for a cotton research history in the world and in a specific country (India as an example). The only shortfalls of the current functionality is the limited number of headings (Chapter and pages within chapter). If we need more headings, an upgrade of the functionality will be required. In each page, conventional functionalities are available such as text formatting, hypertext link, insertions of pics.

ttownsend46

ICAC published, "Cotton: Technology for the 21st Century," in 2010, edited by Phil Wakelyn and Rafiq Chaudhry. The book contains 16 chapters on all aspects of cotton technology, from genetics to yarn formation. The book is 468 pages, which is far too lengthy for use on World Cotton Day. However, it might be possible to compile an overview of world cotton technology based on the abstracts from each chapter. The overview could then be posted on web sites.

I no longer have the Word files for this book, but I will start by simply re-typing the abstracts over the next several days to refresh my memory of what is in each chapter.

michel

ttownsend46 Thanks in advance for your promised contribution, but take easy, you're a retiree. Probably, the book you mention could help us to be more specific in the titling of the various chapters and sections within each. Please note that books under writing are not accessible to viewers (I made exceptions for the two books being viewed), the control of viewing permission applies also to chapter and sections. This means that books can be viewed as their chapters and/or sections are being finalized instead of waiting for the whole book to be finalized. Of course, I won't be the writer of all books and sections, the editor role of specific books can be allocated to whom volunteer to. The editors of a book are the only ones entrusted with the right to see, edit, delete what's being written. Me too, as the general administrator of the website.

hooshmandh

michel

Thank. May be your oponion is research history of cotton plant (cultivation, production and harvesting), but we should note that the purpose of cotton production is the market. The consumption of the textile industry is the cotton market. I am cotton breeder but the textile industry that is thriving on cotton research. Almost all white cotton revolutions have taken place in the field of textiles and also these revolutions have led to the research and development of cotton plant. Most of the cotton history museums I have seen in the world have not been empty of textiles.

michel

hooshmandh Yes, cotton cultivation and the textile industry are closely associated like weft and warp threads in a cotton fabric. It was very clear to me when I wrote a history of a century of promotion of cotton production in an African country then a history of cotton/textile development in the world. So there is an issue of properly delineating the scope of what we should and could write. Implicitly, I actually had in mind the history of cotton cultivation till to obtaining cotton lint (so cotton fiber scientists are totally part of the process and they actually contribute to a proper interlinking between what is offered by growers and what is expected by users, in terms of quality) because this is what most members of the ICRA communitiy is involved in and would be able to write on. Nobody else out of our community would be more qualified to write on what our former colleagues and us have been contributing, just as people more involved in textile industry are more competent to write on the history of innovations in that industry. I would say that a lot has been written already on this latter history (because textile industry has been the "elder daughter" of industrial revolution). Having said that, if we write the "history of cotton cultivation research" (title subject to amendments) by using online tools (why not the wiki functionality of our website?), we could easily refer through hyperlinks, whenever relevant, to existing materials related more to innovations in the textile industry.

I cannot resist from sharing this photo of a drawing about cotton harvest in China under the Qing Dynasty.
image http://forum.icracotton.org/assets/images/453-5p1pZ3cBTDRtveKN.png

One of the emperor of this dynasty, well-known for his nice calligraphy, has contributed in writing the captions of the series of drawings related to cotton from production in field to textile manufacturing. More at https://leidenspecialcollectionsblog.nl/articles/the-imperially-inscribed-illustrations-of-cotton

hooshmandh

michel
I would like to give a brief history of cotton research in Iran. Cotton (Gossypium herbaceum. L) was imported in Iran from eastern Africa through Aden a port city of Yemen and Saudi Arabia about 3000 years ago. Cotton research in Iran started by improvement of upland cotton (G. hirsutum. L) in Philestan region of Varamin in 1939. First of all cotton improvement research center was responsible for cotton farmers’ problems and cotton researches. After establishment of Seed and Plant Improvement Institute, cotton research activities transferred to this institute. Cotton Research Institute (CRI) established in Gorgan in 1997 by maintaining its main branch in Varamin. At the moment, there are five research departments in Gorgan and varamin: Cotton breeding, plant pathology, agronomy, Biotechnology, engineering and technical departments and seven special research stations at Varamin (khaveh), Kashmar, Moghan, Karkandeh, Hashemabad and Darab. Since 1939 a few cotton cultivars have been improved according to the quality of fibers and early maturing in Iran.

venugopalan

Successful commercial cultivation of Hirsutum cotton.
Development and release of the worlds first commercial Hybrid cotton- H4 by Dr CT Patel
Development and release of the worlds finest G barbadense cotton Suvin

manoj114

This is really a proud moment for the cotton researchers to celebrate October 7 as UN World Cotton Day.
I can see most of the posts are related to the production/breeding of the cotton. Here, I want emphasise the history of cottonseed with respect to its edible application as oil, protein, and other food products. It is evident that, that during the time of World War II due to the unavailability of most of the other edible sources, various products made from the cottonseed were served to the soldiers.
Secondly, the development of ultra low gossypol cottonseeds using molecular biology techniques can be another topic which can be considered as a part of cotton history.

As per the suggestion by respected Prof. Michel, I can contribute by writing on the "History of the cottonseed in edible applications".

Dr Manoj Kumar, Scientist
ICAR - CIRCOT, Mumbai

michel

manoj114 For sure, the topics of glandless cotton and cotton with low gossypol seeds deserve to be part of the history to write on cotton research. It is debatable whether they should be addressed in a specific book or in chapters of a more comprehensive book. I am open to any option. There might be rationale for a specific book if we consider that in some French speaking countries of West and Central Africa in early 1990s, there was an experience of growing glandless cotton varieites on hundred of thousands of hectares.

For your information , Dr. Vijay Kumar (drvkumar255@gmail.com) has volunteered writing on cotton research in India. I have just endowed him with the editor right for such a book. Please liaise with him and check whether you could cooperate with him. However, if there is relevance to write specifically on the history of research on cottonseeds, I will create a new book for you to write on.

tabib

This is very interesting discussion platform on cotton. Thanks to ICRA and Dr. FOK to initiate. Though Bangladesh is a small producer of G. hirsutum cotton, but biggest consumer of cotton fibre. We have a glorious history of finest cotton fabric namely MUSLIN, the cotton fibre used to produce MUSLIN, were grown in the country during Mughal era. These varieties were extinct from the nature. We have another cultivation of G. arboreum in the Northern hilly region under ghum cultivation system with 10-12 seeds of other crops seeded in a single hole. I can contribute in this regard. Also different innovative technologies followed by the farmers in cotton field can be discussed.

michel

tabib It is up to you to decide if there is an opportunity to write on a history of cotton research in Bangladesh. If so, I can create a new book and pass the editor rights to you. You probably need to set up a group of persons to join you in the initiative.

s.b._nandeshwar

Very nice discussion and also useful suggestion. Yes I agree that Textile part of cotton may form independent area. And therefore it would be more reliable if we restrict ourself to cotton only like Cotton history , Cotton Botany, Breeding, genetics and biotechnology besides physiology, agronomy entomology etc. In fact cotton monograph which were written long back may be consider as the base and accordingly every important information relating to cotton may be incorporated. I feel ICRA represent world exclusively for cotton , it is the primary requirement to have full compilation of cotton.

michel

@s.b._nandeshwar#724 Your contribution mentioning the existence of former monographs is giving me the idea/suggestion of a way of writing from the most to the oldest technologies coming from cotton research. It is easier for members of our ICRA community to contribute in writing firstly on recent technologies.

As I believe that online books are more relevant today and that our wiki functionality (I used to call it Gossypedia) could be used, chapters could be addressed, written and made accessible in the order we find it convenient. So we can even have in the same time people in charge of dealing recent technologies while other would be dealing with older technologies from inspiration of existing monographs.