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    YE 101 Lecture-9 Flax 2nd Part

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    jiban sr
    The document discusses the cultivation, growth, harvesting, and processing of flax plants to produce linen fibers and fabrics. It describes how flax is grown and harvested, then undergoes retting and breaking processes to separate the fibers from the stalk. The long fibers are used to produce durable, breathable linen textiles. Key steps include planting flax in spring, harvesting 100 days later, and processing fibers through retting, breaking, scutching, and heckling to remove straw and produce pure linen fibers.

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    YE 101 Lecture-9 Flax 2nd Part

    Uploaded by

    jiban sr
    46 views16 pages
    The document discusses the cultivation, growth, harvesting, and processing of flax plants to produce linen fibers and fabrics. It describes how flax is grown and harvested, then undergoes retting and breaking processes to separate the fibers from the stalk. The long fibers are used to produce durable, breathable linen textiles. Key steps include planting flax in spring, harvesting 100 days later, and processing fibers through retting, breaking, scutching, and heckling to remove straw and produce pure linen fibers.

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    YE 101 Lecture-9 Flax 2nd part

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    The document discusses the cultivation, growth, harvesting, and processing of flax plants to produce linen fibers and fabrics. It describes how flax is grown and harvested, then undergoes retting and breaking processes to separate the fibers from the stalk. The long fibers are used to produce durable, breathable linen textiles. Key steps include planting flax in spring, harvesting 100 days later, and processing fibers through retting, breaking, scutching, and heckling to remove straw and produce pure linen fibers.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    46 views16 pages

    YE 101 Lecture-9 Flax 2nd Part

    Uploaded by

    jiban sr
    The document discusses the cultivation, growth, harvesting, and processing of flax plants to produce linen fibers and fabrics. It describes how flax is grown and harvested, then undergoes retting and breaking processes to separate the fibers from the stalk. The long fibers are used to produce durable, breathable linen textiles. Key steps include planting flax in spring, harvesting 100 days later, and processing fibers through retting, breaking, scutching, and heckling to remove straw and produce pure linen fibers.

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    STUDY OF BAST FIBER

    (FLAX/ LINEN) 2 PART


    ND
    MOHAMMAD RAZA MIAH(PH.D.)
    DOCTOR OF ENGINEERING IN MATERIALS PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
    UNIVERSITY OF CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (UCAS)
    CULTIVATION OF FLAX PLANT
    CULTIVATION OF FLAX PLANT

    • Flax is grown like a grain crop with many plants growing close together. Farming flax requires few pesticides
    and fertilizers. Plants can grow 10 to 15 centimeters in height after 8 weeks of sowing. It grows several
    centimeters per day and can reach 70 to 80 centimeters within 50 days.
    • Each plant makes one or more erect, slender stems with small blue and white flowers near the top of the
    stems.The plant flowers for three to four weeks, but each flower lasts for less than a day.
    CULTIVATION OF FLAX PLANT

    • When flax plant is cultivated?


    • Flax should be planted in the early spring, but may also be planted in the
    late summer/early fall in temperate climates. Choose a sunny site with
    well-drained, sandy soil. Direct planting is preferred, but seeds can be
    planted/ sown in flats to be transplanted later. Start seeds indoors 6-8
    weeks before the last frost.
    • Where flax plant is cultivated?
    Figure: flax plant.
    • Most flax is currently grown in North Dakota and Montana, though it is
    adapted more widely and historically had been grown in other regions of
    the U.S. Flax grows well in soils and environments where spring cereals
    are planted/ sown.
    GROWTH OF FLAX PLANT

    • How to Grow Flax Throughout the Season?


    • 1. Growth Habit: Flax gives a delicate, wild look to garden beds and meadows and grows anywhere from 15-
    30’ depending on species and conditions. It complements stronger foliage plants with its wispy stems of gray-
    green foliage. Each flowering stem is topped with silky short-lived disk flowers that bloom and are quickly
    replaced with more. Scarlet flax has gorgeous red petals with a dark eye – blue flax is a gentle, cornflower
    blue that gives a cool, relaxed look to plantings. Both bloom from mid-spring through summer, but succession
    sowing can give you a longer season.
    • 2. Staking: Flax is not staked but it’s fairly spindly stems are helped with a bit of casual support either from
    stronger companion plants or from pea-sticks (dead, branched stems). Insert the pea sticks here and there
    around the developing plants to give them something to lean against and eventually mask.
    GROWTH OF FLAX PLANT…

    • 3. Watering: Keep seeds and seedlings evenly moist. As plants develop, they will need less water. If indirectly
    sowing indoors, allow sufficient ventilation as young seedlings can be killed by damping off disease if kept too
    wet and humid.
    • 4. Fertilizing: No extra fertilizing is necessary.
    • 5. Trimming & Pruning: Both annual and perennial flax will continue to bloom well if they are cut back by
    half after the first flush of bloom. If you live in a hotter climate, this can negatively affect the possibility of re-
    bloom.
    • 6. Mulching: A very light top-dressing of compost can be given in the fall to blue flax, but deep mulching is not
    recommended. Mulching flax too deeply in the fall may result in lack of germination of new seeds in the
    following spring for both blue and scarlet flax.
    HARVESTING OF FLAX FIBER
    HARVESTING OF FLAX FIBER

    • For fiber production flax is harvested after about 100 days when the stems are about meter high. This is
    approximately a month after flowering and two weeks after the seeds form. It is best to harvest when the base
    of the plants starts turning yellow, as the fiber will be underdeveloped and the seeds not useful if the plant is
    still green. Once the plant turns brown, the fiber will degrade.
    HARVESTING OF FLAX FIBER…

    • Harvesting can be either mechanical or manual.


    • 1. Mechanical: A combine harvester is used to cut either the whole plant or just the heads to then extract
    the seeds. When harvesting flax for linen fabric, a specialized flax harvester is used to harvest the plants. It
    looks a bit like a combine harvester, but it has a flax puller rather than a cutting head. So, the plants are pulled
    out of the ground instead of cutting them.
    • To avoid getting grass and weeds in the flax, the plants are turned and gripped by belts about 20 to 25
    centimeters off the ground. The belts then pull the entire plant out of the ground so that the roots can also be
    used and therefore have longer fibers.The plants are passed over the harvester and left in the field for retting.
    • 2. Manual: instead of cutting the flax plants, they are pulled up by hand with the roots to increase the length of
    the fibers. Depending on climatic conditions, the plants are left to ret for between two weeks and two months.
    HARVESTING OF FLAX FIBER…

    • Processing Of Flax:
    • In order to retrieve the fibers, the woody stem and inner pith (called pectin), which hold the fibers together in
    a clump, must be rotted away. Flax that is harvested for seeds goes through a process of threshing to remove
    the seeds from the plants. Flax seeds here we will be looking at the processes for linen fabric production.
    • Retting is the process of rotting away the inner stalk while leaving the outer parts intact, so the straw or course
    outer stem is remaining. There are different methods of retting with pond retting being the fastest but generally
    believed to produce a low quality. Field retting is considered to provide the highest quality fiber and with the
    least amount of pollution.
    • The flax fibers are bound to the straw by pectin. Because of alternating rain and sun during the retting process,
    an enzymatic action takes place which degrades the pectin and enables the flax fibers to be extracted. The flax
    fibers must be separated from the stalk before they can be spun into linen.
    HARVESTING OF FLAX FIBER…

    • “Dressing” the flax requires three processes to remove the straw from the fibers. Heckle for Linen
    • Breaking: The usable flax fibers are separated from the stems by pulling the stems through a hackle and/or
    breaking the plants by beating them. This way the flax is “broken”, breaking the straw into small short bits to
    remove the straw without harming the long flax fibers.
    • Scutching: The process of scraping the outer straw from the fiber is called scutching. The stems are then pulled
    through hackles.
    • Heckling: Hackles are like combs that remove the straw and shorter fibers from the long fibers. A heckle is a
    bed of nails through which the fibers are passed.
    Finally, the fibers can then be spun and woven into linen fabric.
    BENEFITS OF LINEN FABRIC

    • Flax fiber is the strongest natural fiber, making linen fabric durable and long-lasting.
    • Linen is highly absorbent and a good conductor of heat.
    • Linen fabric is biodegradable and recyclable so doesn’t need to go into landfill sites, thus
    reducing the carbon footprint.
    • Linen fabric will remove perspiration from the skin quickly, thereby allowing the skin to
    breathe and air to circulate around the body. This makes it hypoallergenic and suitable for
    allergy sufferers to use.
    • It is naturally antiseptic and kills bacteria and naturally insect repellent.
    • Linen fabric will become softer with each wash. Figure: Linen dress
    STRUCTURE AND BONDS OF LINEN PLANT

    • Figure: Bonding mechanism of linen fabrics by sol-gel processing; (a) hydrogen bonding and (b) covalent
    bonding.
    COTTONIZATION OF FLAX

    • ‘Cottonization’ is a process to produce finer and shorter flax fibers which are used in blending with other
    fibers with the lowest level of impurities. It is an upcoming trend the development of natural fiber base
    material. Fiber bundles are broken down to their ultimate fiber cells via mechanical or chemical processing.
    These broken flaxes are called ‘cottonized’ flax. These individual fibers are 25 to 40mm of length. It is used in
    car construction companies as an anti-noise fabric and is also used for medical purposes.
    USES OF FLAX/ LINEN

    • Flax/ Linen uses the range across-


    • Bed and bath fabrics:Tablecloths, bath towels, dish towels, bed sheets.
    • Home and commercial furnishing items: Wallpaper/wall coverings, upholstery, window treatments.
    • Apparel items: Suits, dresses, skirts, shirts.
    • Industrial products: Luggage, canvases, sewing thread.
    • It was once the preferred yarn for hand sewing the uppers of moccasin-style shoes (loafers) but has been
    replaced by synthetics.

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