ZURICH, Switzerland — April 8, 2014 — The ITMF International Committee on Cotton Testing Methods (ICCTM) approved updates to the Guidelines for Standardized Instrument Testing of Cotton during its meeting in Bremen/ Germany on March 18, 2014. The Guidelines are a joint effort by the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) Task Force on Commercial Standardization of Instrument Testing of Cotton (CSITC) and the ICCTM.
The Guidelines provide specific instructions on the conditioning of cotton samples, operation of instruments and instrument testing laboratories and the handling of data in the evaluation of the quality of cotton fiber. The purpose of the Guidelines are to assure standardized testing procedures so as to ensure results that are accurate, precise and repeatable and are thus useable by the cotton and cotton textile value chains in both the marketing and use of cotton fiber.
The major changes approved at the ICCTM meeting in Bremen included updates to the basic ASTM reference documents, a recommendation that climate data in each laboratory be averaged over a 5 to15 minute interval, cautionary guidance in the use of rapid conditioning equipment, requirements for the continuous identification of samples handled within laboratories, requirements regarding calibration material, information on within-instrument and inter-instrument variations, information about participation in CSITC Round Trials and recommendations regarding the handling of data by laboratories.
The Guidelines are available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. Copies are available at www.itmf.org and www.csitc.org.
Posted April 8, 2014
Source: ITMF
