CSITC Completes 19th Round Trial

By Jim.Robinson|October 11, 2011

The Take Force on Commercial Standardization of Instrument Testing of Cotton (CSITC) has completed its 19th round trial, consisting of 79 testing facilities and 136 instruments. The purpose of CSITC round trials is to facilitate improvements in both accuracy and precision among cotton testing laboratories around the world and serve cotton-testing laboratories in the same way that Greenwich serves international time zones: Each round trial consists of five samples prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and sent to participating laboratories. Each sample is tested in each laboratory six times a day for five days, for all six CSITC parameters: micronaire, length, length uniformity, strength, Rd and +b, resulting in a total of 900 measurements from each instrument. Results are downloaded electronically and sent to the Bremen Fibre Institute for evaluation.

Because of the large number of observations over a five-day period, the resulting pattern of results can be used for detailed diagnostic evaluation. Laboratories are not given grades or pass/fail results, and all results are confidential.

Laboratories are given an overall ranking, as well as rankings for performance on each of the six parameters. Rankings are based on the results of each lab in coming closest to the mean (average) values for all laboratories participating in the Round Trial on all six parameters. The range of scores for the combined properties among the 136 instruments was 0.24 to 2.72 (a score of zero would be perfect), and the median overall evaluation of combined properties was 0.47.

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