PROCESSING COTTON CULTIVARS WITH CONVENTIONAL GIN MACHINERY

Abstract

Cleaning, drying, and ginning cotton cultivars on conventional ginning equipment produces commerciallyuseful information for comparative purposes. Evaluation of numerous cultivars grown in Mississippi in two years ondifferent soil types indicated substantial differences between the cultivars in terms of monetary returns to the farmer andfiber properties important to the textile industry. In 1994, gross monetary returns averaged $1,097.71 per hectare andranged from about $957.92 to $1,258.19; classers color was generally Middling grade but leaf ranged from 1.3 to 3.3;the number of neps averaged 289 and ranged from 209 to 381 per gram of lint; seed-coat fragments (SCFs) averaged59.6 and ranged from 44 to 116 per 3 g of lint; and short fiber content (SFC) by weight averaged 8.0% and ranged from5.4% to 11.2%. Similar results occurred in 1993, unfortunately, the best characteristics were not all present in thecultivars that yielded the highest monetary return. These results show the potential for improving cotton fiber qualityparameters but care must be exercised to ensure that all growth conditions are considered.