Fiber crop
plant grown for fiber
Fiber crops are field crops grown for their fibers, which are traditionally used to make paper, cloth, or rope.
Fiber crops are characterized by having a large concentration of cellulose, which is what gives them their strength. The fibers may be chemically modified, like in viscose (used to make rayon and cellophane). In recent years, materials scientists have begun exploring further use of these fibers in composite materials.
Fiber crops are generally ready for harvest after a single growing season, as distinct from trees, which are typically grown for many years before being harvested for such materials as wood pulp fiber or lacebark. In specific circumstances, fiber crops can be superior to wood pulp fiber in terms of technical performance, environmental impact or cost.
Botanically, the fibers harvested from many of these plants fall into four categories: bast fibers, from the phloem tissue of the plant; hard/leaf fibers (from the entirety of plant vascular bundles); surface (seed) fibers (from plant epidermal tissue); and pith.
Fiber sources
To have a source of fiber to utilize in production, the fiber first must be extracted from the plant. This is done in different ways depending on the fiber classification. Bast fibers are harvested through retting which is where microbes are utilized to remove soft tissues from the plant and only the useful fibrous material remains.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Fiber crop” as plant grown for fiber. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as plant grown for fiber. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1147096. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A general summary may omit uncertainty, sample limits or methodological disagreement that is explicit in the technical record. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fiber crop” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.