Fiber Plants: An Overview

Abstract

Fiber cells are present in all plants with varied shape, sizes, and composition. Fiber crops are source of commercially exploited fibers since beginning of civilization and fiber/fabric consumption is used as indicator of civilization of society. Much of the need of rural populations for fiber is met with material harvested from wild. That is of great concern for biodiversity conservation and sustainable utilization of resources. New technologies are used to understand the fiber development and formation, diversity of plants, and consequently improvement strategies are developed using plant cell cultures and genetic engineering. New technologies are being developed to obtain fiber and fiber products from sources as diverse as agriculture waste, baggasses, vegetable and fruit processing, and other industrial waste. Plant fibers are finding new and diverse applications and usage like dietary fibers, biodegradable films in food industry, natural fiber composites, biopolymers, biofuels, and pharmaceuticals besides improved textiles. This article summarizes the scenario about new technologies and sustainable exploitation of fiber plants and their products.