The James Hutton Institute
This page is no longer updated. The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute joined forces with SCRI joined forces on 1 April 2011 to create The James Hutton Institute.
The James Hutton InstituteThis page is no longer updated. The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute joined forces with SCRI joined forces on 1 April 2011 to create The James Hutton Institute.
This page has been mothballed.
The round trial
(Dr Ho Phan, DWI, Germany)
Since the OFDA has been proposed by the EFFN as the preferred technique for testing cashmere fleeces, the Thematic Network is going to conduct a round trial on the measurement of the mean fibre diameter of fine cashmere down and of mohair in October this year.
The main aim of the round trial is to test the reliability of the OFDA method for the measurement of the mean and distribution of fibre diameter of mohair and of fine cashmere down. Due to the fact that there are no standards for the diameter range among 13 - 17 µm for calibrating the OFDA, the conventional projection microscope method will also be used in the round trial for testing the fibre fineness. A comparison between the values gained by the OFDA and by the microprojection technique will be made. If the OFDA method exhibits a high precision in this trial, it would be recommended to be a standard method for cashmere down and mohair.
Organizers: K.-H. Phan (DWI) and C. Souchet (MLURI)
Participants: DWI will ask laboratories and institutes which have been working in fibre testing by means of the OFDA and/or the projection microscope and are interested to take part in such a round trial.
Date: the round trial will be started on 1st October 1997
Instruments: OFDA, projection microscope
Test specimens: As requested by the European cashmere and mohair growers, only cleaned samples of dehaired, fine cashmere down and of mohair (without medullation) will be used. The cashmere test samples will be delivered to DWI by the MLURI (Macaulay Land Use Research Institute) and the mohair samples by INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique). DWI will distribute the subsamples to the participants of the round trial.
The participants will be asked to apply the OFDA and the projection microscope (or both of them, if available) and to supply the mean fibre diameters and standard deviations for the samples.
The test results will be evaluated by the MLURI and reported in the newsletters of the Thematic Network as well as at meetings of IWTO.
