| ACID DELINTING IN COTTON
What is?
In cotton, seeds are removed from kapas the fruiting body which has both seed and lint. In the separated seed, seed coat will have hairy outgrowth and this is the genetic characteristic feature of the seed. These seeds are known as fuzzy seed as the hair like growth is known as fuzz. Normally these fuzzy cotton seeds are used for sowing purpose and these seeds creates problems on sowing as
- Maintenance plant population in the field mainly due to difficulty in recognition of contaminates, broken seeds, diseased seeds, insect infected seeds, immature seeds
- Non free flowing nature of the fuzzy seed make the sowing difficult
- More seed rate and Lesser storability
Hence separation of seed from the lint to increase the free flowing nature of the seed proper removal of the fuzz, the external hair from the seed coat is necessary, which could be obtained through the process known as delinting. Delinting is the process of removal of fuzz from the seed coat in cotton i.e. it is a crop specific seed management technique.
Methodology
- Take one kg of the cotton (fuzzy seeds) in a plastic bucket and add concentration H2SO4 at the rate of 100ml / kg of seed
- While additions it should be constant stirring by using wooden stick for 2-3 minutes to facilitate uniform coverage and better treatment effect.
- After 3 minutes all seeds will turn into coffee brown in colour
- Wash the seeds immediately for 4-5 times with cold water until the acid nature of the seed is removed.
- Care should be taken while washing the improper washing will affect the viability of the seed.
- After thorough washing the entire seed should be placed in water in 1: 10 ratio to remove floaters.
- For complete removal of acid seeds can be dipped in 0.5% calcium chloride solution for 10-15 minutes.The sinkers seeds can be used for sowing purpose.
- For large scale delinting of cotton, cotton delinting machine can be used.
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