印度种植环保彩棉

Scientists at the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, have successfully grown coloured cottons, which they term as ‘economical’ and ‘eco-friendly’.

The new variety will be economical as it does away with the need for processing and dyeing at yarn and fabric making stages. The latest variety is also eco-friendly as it does away with the need to use carcinogenic dye chemicals in the fabric, while minimizing the toxic effluents from the dyeing industries.

Fibre2fashion spoke to Dr. Shreekant S Patil, Senior Cotton Breeder and Dr. Manjula Maralappanavar, Senior Scientist (Plant Breeding), All India Co-ordinated Cotton Improvement Project (AICCIP) of UAS, Dharwad, who have been instrumental in developing the new coloured variety of cotton.

“The earlier coloured cotton varieties in India were very poor with respect to yield and fibre quality, and hence were not commercially viable either for cultivation or for the use in textile industry. In 1996, research activities were initiated to improve these and to make them useful, under an already running project funded by the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI),” the scientists said.

“The new variety is not genetically modified. The coloured cottons are improved through conventional breeding/genetic improvement by using the improved white linted genotypes for crossing. It involves more than a decade’s effort and is still a continuous process,” they added.

Apprising about the qualities, they stated,” The coloured cottons have been improved for fibre quality and yield potential to make it possible to use them for machine spinning and for diverse fabric production. However, they have to be and are being further improved for fibre quality.”

Mentioning about the colours, they say, “We have shades of brown and one green colour. Efforts are on to transfer the genes from flowering plants (petunia and snapdragon) in the direction to diversify the colours, but it would take a long time.”

Listing the advantages, they inform, “The coloured cottons would be ecologically and economically very viable because no dyes are used and there would be no processing also. These can be directly used for spinning and weaving. Hence, these have a very good potential in this eco-aware and organic era. For the same reason, these also have large export potential.”

However, some care needs to be taken while undertaking mass commercial production. “Coloured cottons have to be grown in isolation from white cottons, as they can contaminate white cotton upon crossing. It can be made possible by growing them in isolated patches/villages. Also, the buy back arrangement has to be done in advance as these cannot be sold in open markets. They have to be cultivated under the technical supervision to maintain isolation and see that there is no seed pilferage. To take care of these points, a link has to be developed between the growers, industry and UAS, Dharwad,” they suggested.

译文如下：

印度达尔瓦德农业科技大学的科学家们最近成功研发出彩棉，他们称之为“经济”和“环保”的。
这种新型棉花在纱线面料加工和染色过程中依然是经济的。同时，针对面料染色中运用的致癌染料，该种新型棉花也较为环保，同时还能缩水染厂有毒污水的排放。
据研发该种棉花的科学家所说，过去在印度种植的棉花种类在亩产和纤维质量上都非常一般，因此对种植和纺织业运用都基本无利可图。1996年，在印度棉花公司投资的另一个项目下，针对经济环保彩棉的研发计划正式开始启动。这种新型的棉花不是转基因的。彩棉是通过传统的基因改良技术研发而成，它包含了近十年来的努力而且对于彩棉的开发还将继续。
关于质量问题，科学家们说，彩棉通过改善纤维质量和产量，能够在机织和面料生产上都能良好而且多样化的运用。但是，纤维质量还是要继续提高。而关于色彩的问题，专家说他们现在有少数棕色和一个绿色的。他们正在努力从花朵中提取基因注射到棉花中以改变其原有的颜色，但是过程还比较漫长。
科学家们认为，彩棉的优势就是环保和经济。因为这些彩棉无需染色或再加工，就可以直接运用到纺纱和织造中。因此，在注重生态环保的现今，彩棉的潜力非常大。但是，在大型商业生产时还有很多方面要注意。彩棉必须远离白棉种植，因为他们会在杂交时污染白棉。而且销售计划必须预先制定，因为这些彩棉不可以在公开市场销售。采摘彩棉时，必须实行有力的技术监督以保障没有偷取种子这样的事情发生。关于彩棉的运用需要棉农、业界和达尔瓦德农业科技大学通力合作。