Fiber Definitions — textile fibers, yarn fibers and fiber properties from Apparel Search
Jute is a long, soft, shiny fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is one of the cheapest natural fibers, and is second only to cotton in amount produced and variety of uses. Jute fibers are composed primarily of the plant materials cellulose, lignin and pectin. Both the fiber and the plant from which it comes are commonly called jute. It belongs to the genus Corchorus in the basswood family, Tiliaceae.
Jute is used chiefly to make cloth for wrapping bales of raw cotton, and to make gunny sacks and gunny cloth. The fibers are also woven into curtains, chair coverings, carpets, and burlap. However, jute is being replaced by synthetic materials for these uses. Very fine threads of jute are made into imitation silk. The fibers are used alone or blended with other types of fibers to make twine and rope. Jute butts, the coarse ends of the plants, are used to make inexpensive cloth.
Jute, a rainy season crop, grows best in warm, humid climates. China, India, and Bangladesh are the main producers of jute. To grow jute, farmers scatter the seeds on cultivated soil. When the plants are about 6 inches (15 centimeters) tall, they are thinned out.
About four months after planting, harvesting begins. The plants are usually harvested after they bloom, but before the blossoms go to seed. Workers cut the stalks off close to the ground. The stalks are tied into bundles and steeped (soaked). This process softens the tissues and permits the fibers to be separated. The fibers are then stripped from the stalks in long strands and washed in clear, running water. Then they are hung up or spread on thatched roofs to dry. After two or three days of drying, the fibers are tied into bundles.
Jute is graded (rated) according to its color, strength, and fiber length. The fibers are off-white to brown and 3 to 15 feet (0.9 to 4.5 meters) long. Jute is pressed into bales for shipment to manufacturers.
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/jute). 10/29/04 |
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Jute is graded according to its colour, strength and fiber length. The fibers are off-white to brown and 3 to 15 feet, 0.9 to 4.5 metres, long, a remarkable length for a plant fiber, which is why jute can be spun into the coarse, strong threads used for sacking and rope rather than only into fine yarns. China, India and Bangladesh are the main producers of jute, and the crop's economics follow its cheapness: it is one of the cheapest natural fibers, second only to cotton in amount produced and variety of uses, yet it is being replaced by synthetic materials for many of its traditional uses. That replacement is a measure of how a fiber's market is set not by one property but by the whole bundle of properties, price, strength, length, and the processing it needs. Jute's length and strength keep it in carpets, chair coverings, curtains and burlap, while its coarse hand and its dependence on a rainy season climate limit it in apparel, where finer, softer fibers take the garment work.
The wrapping of cotton bales in jute cloth is the classic example of one fiber carrying another to market: a cheap, strong, coarse fiber protecting a valuable, soft fiber through transport and storage. The same logic applies to gunny sacks and gunny cloth, to twine and rope made alone or blended with other fibers, and to the inexpensive cloth made from jute butts, the coarse ends of the plants. Nothing in the jute plant is wasted at that level, and the processing, cutting, bundling, steeping, stripping, washing and drying, is work done close to where the crop grows. The result is a fiber whose value is not in luxury but in volume, reliability and cost, and whose name has become the generic word for the sacks it makes.
Jute is used chiefly to make cloth for wrapping bales of raw cotton, and to make gunny sacks and gunny cloth. The fibers are also woven into curtains, chair coverings, carpets and burlap, used alone or blended with other fibers to make twine and rope, and very fine threads of jute are made into imitation silk. Jute butts, the coarse ends of the plants, are used to make inexpensive cloth.
Jute, a rainy season crop, grows best in warm, humid climates. Farmers scatter the seeds on cultivated soil, thin the plants when about 6 inches, 15 centimetres, tall, and harvest about four months after planting, usually after the plants bloom but before the blossoms go to seed, cutting the stalks close to the ground.
The stalks are tied into bundles and steeped, soaked, in water. This process softens the tissues and permits the fibers to be separated. The fibers are then stripped from the stalks in long strands, washed in clear running water, hung up or spread on thatched roofs to dry for two or three days, then tied into bundles and pressed into bales for shipment.