Honeydew

Metabolic by-products deposited on Cotton

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What is Honeydew ?
• The insects of cotton plant secrets metabolic by-
products which is deposited on plant parts as
glistening droplets, commonly called Honeydew.

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Role of Insects in forming Honeydew & it’s contents

• Honeydew is excreted by certain phloem-feeding insects
including such common pests of cotton as Aphids and
Whiteflies.
• These insects are capable of transforming ingested sucrose
into over twenty different sugars in their excreted honeydew.
• The major sugars in cotton insect honeydew are trehalulose,
melezitose, sucrose, fructose and glucose.
• Apart from organic compounds glycerol, mannitol, fumaric
acid, etc may also present in honeydew.
• The honeydew attaches itself to the leaves and the fibres of
opened bolls.
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Problems for Honeydew

• The random deposits of honeydew on seed
cotton makes fibres sticky.
• Stickiness is a complex, three-component
interaction that involves the source sugars,
harvested seed cotton, and processing
equipment
• It ultimately results irregularity in product.

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Causes for stickiness

• Heat: During yarn formation the cotton fibres are exposed to friction forces that elevate
the temperature of some mechanical parts, which affects the temperature-dependent
properties of the sugars present. If one or more of the sugars melt, stickiness results.
• Moisture: Obviously moisture will cause sugars to change from a crystalline state (non-
sticky) to an amorphous state (sticky). In particular, the relative humidity in the
manufacturing environment may affect the moisture-dependent properties of the sugars
present

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Effect of stickiness on different processes

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Effect of stickiness on fibre

• Under high humidity, saprophytic micro-organisms grow on lint and

lower the quality by discolouration.
• The strength may also get affected.

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Effect of stickiness on ginning

• Sticky cotton tends to clog/choke the ginning machines. Stickiness

reduces roller gin production by 10 to 15 pounds of lint per hour. It
also causes additional financial losses due to frequent replacement of
blades/saws.

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Effect of stickiness on spinning

• Stickiness will cause lint to stick to card clothing and draft rollers
in subsequent processes.
• Sticky fibres even if they pass through the spinning back process
will create extra centrifugal forces during ballooning, causing the
yarn to break.
• In the OE frames stickiness will clog the turbine. No matter how
we look at stickiness it will reduce efficiency and production to a
considerable extent during spinning.
• Low humidity will dry the sugars and they will cease to be sticky. If
however, humidity is allowed to rise, sugars will become sticky
again.

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Effect of stickiness on weaving

• Stickiness has minimal effect on warp as it is usually sized and the sugar present
gets either dissolved in the hot size mix or is covered by it.
• However, in weft, sugar starts building up in shuttle, gripper or air jet and weaving
efficiency drops to a level where it becomes uneconomic to continue weaving.
Frequent cleaning of wefts passage would, therefore, be required. This is time
consuming and expensive.

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Effects of Honeydew in Chemical Processing

• It is known that the honeydew components (i.e. sugars and various proteins)
corresponding to the non-enzymatic (brown) reaction scheme, form brownish-
black pigment stains. This reaction proceeds even at low temperatures, albeit
relatively slowly, and is accelerated by the action of heat. The presence of
additional substances such as organic acids can likewise contribute to the reaction
as well as stimulate the formation of sugar caramel structures which results in
similar yellow-brown pigments.

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Economics of stickiness

• To growers, stickiness means higher costs for insect control and reduced cotton
marketability. Cotton price is reduced for stickiness by the market at a rate
proportional to the perception of risk.
• To ginners, stickiness may mean special handling and processing requirements.
Sticky cotton can reduce cotton gin output (in bales/hr) by up to 25%.
• At the textile mill, stickiness means reduced processing efficiency, lower yarn
quality, excessive wear and increased maintenance of machinery may occur even
with slightly sticky cotton. For everyone concerned, stickiness means reduced
profitability.

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Stickiness detection and measurement

• The degree of stickiness depends on chemical identity, quantity, and distribution

of the sugars, the ambient conditions during processing—especially humidity —and
the machinery itself. Stickiness is therefore difficult to measure. Nonetheless,
methods for measuring sugars on fibre have been and are being developed. These
measurements may be correlated with sticking of contaminated lint to moving
machine parts. The physical and chemical attributes of the lint and sugars that are
correlated with stickiness have been measured in many ways, each with differing
efficiency and precision.

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Methods of Stickiness detection and measurement

• Reducing sugar method

• High performance liquid chromatography
• Minicard method
• Sticky cotton thermo detector
• High speed stickiness detector
• Fibre contamination tester

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Solutions to get rid of honeydew

• During cultivation: These honeydew-producing insects may be managed by
avoiding conditions leading to outbreaks, carefully sampling pest populations, and
using effective insecticides when populations reach predetermined thresholds.
• In ginning: The ginning rate of honeydew contaminated cotton can be increased
by increasing the heat of the drying towers to reduce humidity.
• At the textile mill: Stickiness may be managed by blending bales and by reducing
humidity during carding. A lubricant (Hydrocarbons & surfactants) in fog form
may be introduced at the end of the hopper conveyor, and card crush rolls may be
sprayed sparingly with a lubricant to minimize sticking. Efficient preparatory
chemical processing is also beneficial.

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Effectiveness of a heat activated catalyst in decreasing

the honeydew level of a contaminated cotton sample

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 References :
• The Indian Textile Journal, June 2008
• Mian Iftkhar Afzal: Cotton Stickiness – A Marketing and Processing Problem, Proceedings of the
Seminar, July 4-7, 2001, Lille, France.
• The Journal of Cotton Science 6:143–147 (2002)
• Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Hans-Karl Rouette Encyclopedia of Textile Finishing.
• http://textiletechinfo.com
• CIRCOT leaflet
• United States Department of Agriculture,Agricultural Research Service,Technical Bulletin
Number 1915,June 2007
• The University of Arizona, Cooperative Extension work, IPM Series No. 13

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Prepared By….
SK RAJU
B.Tech in Textile Technology
Pass out year - 2017
Department of Textile Technology
Government College of Engineering & Textile Technology,
Berhampore
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