Fiber characteristics of promising abaca (Musa textiles Nee) accessions in NARC [National Abaca Research Center] germplasm suitd for specific industry and uses

The performance of a given fiber used in a given application depends on several factors including chemical composition and physical properties among others. Abaca fiber offers great potential as raw material for different industrial applications due to its unique fiber characteristics. Its superior tensile strength and extremely long fibers compared to other natural fibers makes it more desirable as composite even in highly stressed components in the car manufacturing industry. Five new promising accessions (NARC _MIO, NARC-M107, NARC-159, NARC-M168 and NARC-M179) were selected for the fibercraft industry. These accessions have longer fibers ranging from 21.33 cm to 214 cm, higher tensile strength (25.27 to 37.59 kg-m/gm), and fiber yield ranging from 0.92 to 2.23 tons/ha. These accessions also possess fiber qualities acceptable to the fibercraft processors such as moderately coarse to soft fiber texture, lustrous and slightly uniform individual fiber strand. Based on fiber length and tensile strength, these accessions are also potential materials for the car manufacturing industry. For the pulp and paper industry, another set of seven promising accessions were identified with fiber yields ranging from 0.83 to 2.23 tons/ha and tensile strength from 26.18 to 41.08 kg-m/gm. In terms of fiber morphological properties, these accessions have higher flexibility and slender ratios and lower runkel ratio indicating stronger burst and folding strength as well as higher resistance to tearing, qualities needed in producing thin papers of high porosity and strength. In terms of chemical composition, the holocellulose (83.02-86.90%), alphacellulose (52.50-64.21%) and hemicellulose (16.23-26.20%) contents of these accessions are relatively higher indicating higher pulp yield, shorter beating and denser pulp sheets of fiber when used as raw material for pulp and paper. In addition, the ash (0.84-1.72%) contents are relatively lower indicating lower pulping chemical consumption and shorter pulping time.