BRS Rubi is a colored fiber cultivar whose cycle varies between 140 and 150 days. The plants show an average 110 cm in height. The color of the flower and the pollen is yellow and blooming begins at 55 days. Such cultivar is different from other brown fiber ones existing in Brazil as it presents a darker or redder coloration; alongside BRS Safira, it is one of the first Brazilian cultivars with the colored wool trait. Like all colored fiber cultivars, even though the color lasts, delaying the harvest should be avoided to prevent the fiber's excessive exposure to the sun and hence obtain an intense coloration. In the assessments, the cultivar presented average productivity of 1,894 kg/ha for Brazilian Semiarid conditions.
As it is naturally colored, this cultivar does not go through the chemical processes of bleaching and dying, generating an end product that could be used by consumers who are allergic to the compounds used and/or present in said stages of processing. Moreover, if it is organically produced (without the use of chemical inputs or fertilizers), there could be further added value to the product. In that sense, there is a potential market for the acquisition of children's clothes, underwear, socks, handkerchiefs, winter clothes, t-shirts, blankets and other items.
Cultivating cotton with such specialized fiber is one of the options to have smallholders add value to their production, especially in the Brazilian Northeast, where incidence of leaf and soil diseases is low. Colored cotton has 20-30% greater market value than white cotton, increasing farmers' profit earning capacity. The Northeastern cotton production chain is mostly constituted by smallholders with low profitability, which motivated Embrapa's special cotton breeding program to work on the development of alternatives to add value to production.

Who benefits from that?
Smallholders, craftworkers, retailers and consumers

Geographic range
Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, Pernambuco and Mato Grosso do Sul

Economic benefit
The technology has a lot of potential for expansion into other cotton crop areas. The market share is still small, but naturally colored cotton clothes have been gaining momentum in Brazil and abroad.

Partners
Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos - FINEP (Studies and Projects Financing Agency), Banco do Nordeste-BNB and CNPq
This technological solution was developed by Embrapa in partnership with other institutions.