Central Institute of Horticulture (CIH), Medziphema in Nagaland held a one day training on ‘pineapple fibre extraction’ as pineapple leaf has high textile grade commercial fibre and is graded between jute and cotton. The training was organized at Molvom village, Dimapur to promote utilization of agro-waste leaves of pineapple for fibre extraction.

Arvind Singh, technical consultant also a resource person highlighted that pineapple leaf contains 2.5-3.5% strong, white and silky textile grade fibre embedded by a top waxy layer within the leaf. It has all the textile properties capable of blending with jute, cotton and other synthetic fibres.

Pineapple leaf fiber can spin yarns of 19.4 to 7.3 tex, or produce the yarns of 53, 27.8, and 19.4 tex blended with cotton. And also it can spin by blending yarns of 36 and 25 tex with flax. The fabrics of pineapple leaf fiber are easy to print and dye, sweat-absorbent and breathable, hard and not wrinkling, and it has good antibacterial and deodorization performances. It fits to high grade suits, shirts, divided skirt, bed clothes and decorative fabrics and so on.

Altogether about 100 pineapple growers from the village participated in the training programme. This programme will help create self employment and for additional income for farmers since pineapple is cultivated in large scale at the village.