Vegetable fibre (Jute):

Jute is a bast fiber used for sacking, burlap, and twine as a backing material for tufted carpets.

It is a long, soft, shiny vegetable fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from plants in the genus Corchorus, which was once classified with the family Tiliaceae, more recently with Malvaceae, and has now been reclassified as belonging to the family Sparrmanniaceae. "Jute" is the name of the plant or fiber that is used to make burlap, Hessian or gunny cloth.

Jute is one of the most affordable natural fibers and is second only to cotton in amount produced and variety of uses of vegetable fibers. Jute fibers are composed primarily of the plant materials cellulose and lignin. It falls into the bast fiber category (fiber collected from bast or skin of the plant) along with kenaf, industrial hemp, flax (linen), ramie, etc. The industrial term for jute fiber is raw jute. The fibers are off-white to brown, and 1–4 meters (3–13 feet) long. Jute is also called "the golden fiber" for its color and high cash value.

History

For centuries, jute has been an integral part of the culture of East Bengal, in the entire southwest of Bangladesh. Since the seventeenth century the British East India Company started trading in Jute. During the reign of the British Empire Jute was also used in the military. English Jute Barons grew rich processing jute and selling manufactured products made from jute. Dundee Jute Barons and the British East India Company set up many jute mills in Bengal and by 1895 jute industries in Bengal overtook the Scottish jute trade. Many Scots emigrated to Bengal to set up jute factories. More than a billion jute sandbags were exported from Bengal to the trenches during World War I and also exported to the United States southern region to bag cotton. It was used in the fishing, construction, art and the arms industry. Initially, due to its texture, it could only be processed by hand until it was discovered in that city that by treating it with whale oil, it could be treated by machine^[2] The industry boomed throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ("jute weaver" was a recognised trade occupation in the 1900 UK census), but this trade had largely ceased by about 1970 due to the appearance of synthetic fibers. In the 21st century Jute again rose to be an important crop for export around the world in contrast to synthetic fibre, mainly from Bangladesh.

Properties of Jute Fiber:

1.     Jute fibre is 100% bio-degradable and recyclable and thus environmentally friendly.

2.     Jute is a natural fibre with golden and silky shine and hence called The Golden Fibre.

3.     Jute is the cheapest vegetable fibre procured from the bast or skin of the plant's stem.

4.     It is the second most important vegetable fibre after cotton, in terms of usage, global consumption, production, and availability.

5.     It has high tensile strength, low extensibility, and ensures better breathability of fabrics. Therefore, jute is very suitable in agricultural commodity bulk packaging.

6.     It helps to make best quality industrial yarn, fabric, net, and sacks. It is one of the most versatile natural fibres that has been used in raw materials for packaging, textiles, non-textile, construction, and agricultural sectors. Bulking of yarn results in a reduced breaking tenacity and an increased breaking extensibility when blended as a ternary blend.

7.     Unlike the fiber known as hemp, jute is not a form of (Cannabis). Therefore it can be much more easily distinguished from forms of Cannabis that produce a narcotic

8.     Jute is one of the most versatile natural fibres that has been used in raw materials for packaging, textiles, non-textile, and agricultural sectors.

9.     Jute stem has very high volume of cellulose that can be procured within 4-6 months, and hence it also can save the forest and meet cellulose and wood requirement of the world.

10.                        The best varieties of Jute are Bangla Tosha - Corchorus olitorius (Golden shine) and Bangla White - Corchorus capsularis (Whitish Shine), and Mesta or Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus) is another species with fibre similar to Jute with medium quality.

11.                        Raw Jute and Jute goods are interpreted as Burlap, Industrial Hemp, and Kenaf in some parts of the world.

The best source of Jute in the world is the Bengal Delta Plain, which is occupied by Bangladesh and India.

Cultivation

Jute needs a plain alluvial soil and standing water. The suitable climate for growing jute (warm and wet) is offered by the monsoon climate, during the monsoon season. Temperatures from 20˚C to 40˚C and relative humidity of 70%–80% are favourable for successful cultivation. Jute requires 5–8 cm of rainfall weekly, and more during the sowing time.

White jute (Corchorus capsularis)

Historical documents (including Ain-e-Akbari by Abul Fazal in 1590) state that the poor villagers of India used to wear clothes made of jute. Simple handlooms and hand spinning wheels were used by the weavers, who used to spin cotton yarns as well. History also states that Indians, especially Bengalis, used ropes and twines made of white jute from ancient times for household and other uses.It is the best to carry grains or other agricultural products.

Tossa jute (Corchorus olitorius)

Tossa jute (Corchorus olitorius) is a variety thought to be native to India, and is also the world's top producer. It is grown for both fiber and culinary purposes. It is used as an herb in Middle Eastern and African countries, where the leaves are used as an ingredient in a mucilaginous potherb called "molokhiya" (ملوخية, of uncertain etymology). It is very popular in some Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Syria as a soup-based dish, sometimes with meat over rice or lentils. The Book of Job, in the King James translation of the Hebrew Bible mentions this vegetable potherb as "Jew's mallow".^[1] It is high in protein, vitamin C, beta-carotene, calcium, and iron.

On the other hand, it is used mainly for its fiber in Bangladesh, in other countries in Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific. Tossa jute fiber is softer, silkier, and stronger than white jute. This variety astonishingly shows good sustainability in the climate of the Ganges Delta. Along with white jute, tossa jute has also been cultivated in the soil of Bengal where it is known as paat from the start of the 19th century. Currently, Bangladesh) is the largest global producer of the tossa jute variety.

 Production

Jute is a rain-fed crop with little need for fertilizer or pesticides, in contrast to cotton's heavy requirements. Production is concentrated mostly in Bangladesh with a small portion coming from India's state of West Bengal. The jute fiber comes from the stem and ribbon (outer skin) of the jute plant. The fibers are first extracted by retting. The retting process consists of bundling jute stems together and immersing them in slow running water. There are two types of retting: stem and ribbon. After the retting process, stripping begins; women and children usually do this job. In the stripping process, non-fibrous matter is scraped off, then the workers dig in and grab the fibers from within the jute stem.^[3] India, Pakistan, and China are the large buyers of Bangladesh jute while the United Kingdom, Japan, United States, France, Spain, Côte d'Ivoire, Germany and Brazil also import raw jute from Bangladesh in bulk quantities. Bangladesh is the world's largest producer of jute.

Top ten jute producers — 2013
Country	Production (Tones)
Bangladesh	2,989,783
India	1,237,270
People's Republic of China	43,500
Burma	30,000
Uzbekistan	18,930
Nepal	14,418
Vietnam	14,000
Zimbabwe	2,298
Egypt	2,200
Thailand	2,184
World	2,861,996

Genome

Bangladesh successfully completed the draft genome of jute (Corchorus olitorius). At the beginning of the 21st century, in 2002 a consortium of researchers were commissioned by the Bangladesh from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh Jute Research Institute (BJRI) and private software firm DataSoft Systems Bangladesh Ltd. in collaboration with Centre for Chemical Biology, University of Science Malaysia and University of Hawaii were involved in this project.^[5]

Advantages of Jute Fiber:

1.     Jute Fiber has great antistatic properties; so that any kind of static charges are not produced during Jute Product making or using.

2.     Jute is a insulating fiber and this is why it can be used to make cloth which would be used in electrical works.

3.     Temperature is passed in this fiber slowly because of the low thermal conductivity.

4.     Moisture Regain properties is good enough (about 13.75%).

5.     Produce no irritation in skin.

6.     100% Biodegradable; so it is environment friendly fiber like Cotton.

7.     Cheap in market.

8.     Available in the market and the overall productivity of Jute Fiber is good.

9.     Tensile strength is high.

10.                        Jute Fabric is highly breathable and comfortable to use.

11.                        Can be widely used in Agriculture Sector, Textile Sector, Woven Sector, Nonwoven Sector.

12.                        Jute Fibre can be blended with Natural and Synthetic fibers.

13.                        Can be died by Basic, Vat, Sulpher and Reactive Dyes.

Disadvantages of Jute Fiber Using:

1.     The crease resistance of Jute is very low.

2.     Drape Property is not good enough.

3.     Create Shade effect and becomes yellowish if sunlight is used.

4.     If Jute is wetted it lose it’s strength.

 Uses:

Jute is the second most important vegetable fibre after cotton; not only for cultivation, but also for various uses.

• Jute is used chiefly to make cloth for wrapping bales of raw cotton, and to make sacks and coarse cloth.
• The fibres are also woven into curtains, chair coverings, carpets, area rugs, hessian cloth, and backing for linoleum. 
• While jute is being replaced by synthetic materials in many of these uses, some uses take advantage of jute's biodegradable nature, where synthetics would be unsuitable.
• Jute butts, the coarse ends of the plants, are used to make inexpensive cloth.
• Traditionally jute was used in traditional textile machineries as textile fibres having cellulose (vegetable fibre content) and lignin (wood fibre content). But, the major breakthrough came when the automobile, pulp and paper, and the furniture and bedding industries started to use jute and its allied fibres with their non-woven and composite technology to manufacture nonwovens, technical textiles, and composites.
• Jute can be used to create a number of fabrics such as Hessian cloth, sacking, scrim, carpet backing cloth (CBC), and canvas.
• Hessian, lighter than sacking, is used for bags, wrappers, wall-coverings, upholstery, and home furnishings.
• Sacking, a fabric made of heavy jute fibres, has its use in the name.
• Diversified jute products are becoming more and more valuable to the consumer today. Among these are espadrilles, floor coverings, home textiles, high performance technical textiles, Geotextiles, composites, and more.
• Jute is also used in the making of ghillie suits which are used as camouflage and resemble grasses or brush

Thus, jute is the most environment-friendly fibre starting from the seed to expired fibre, as the expired fibres can be recycled more than once.

Another diversified jute product is Geotextiles, which made this agricultural commodity more popular in the agricultural sector. It is a lightly woven fabric made from natural fibres that is used for soil erosion control, seed protection, weed control, and many other agricultural and landscaping uses. The Geotextiles can be used more than a year and the bio-degradable jute Geotextile left to rot on the ground keeps the ground cool and is able to make the land more fertile.