3.1. Why micronaire is inaccurate for estimating fineness
Fig. 1 shows HVI measured micronaire plotted against the formula for micronaire based on Lord's model reported by Montalvo and Hoven (2005). The R2 is 0.95 and significant at P = 0.01; this relationship is strong and demonstrates how different fineness and maturity values can give the same micronaire value. For example, an estimated micronaire value of 4.0 can give a range of 3.5–4.3 HVI micronaire. To further illustrate this difference, FMT fineness was plotted against HVI micronaire ( Fig. 2). The relationship is highly significant at P = 0.001 but the R2 value is much lower at 0.63, showing considerable variation. For example, a FMT fineness value of 180 could have a micronaire value of 3.6–5.0.