Classing And Marketing

Classing

After the lint is baled at the gin, samples taken from each bale are classed according to fiber strength, length, length uniformity, color, non-fiber content and fineness using high volume instrumentation (HVI) and the aid of an expert called a Classer. Scientific quality control checks are made periodically to ensure that instrument and Classer accuracy is maintained.


Other quality factors also are important. The fiber’s fineness is important for determining the type of yarns that can be made from the fiber—the finer the cotton fibers, the finer the yarns. Color or brightness of the fibers also is important. Cotton that is very white generally is of higher value than cottons whose color may have yellowed with exposure to elements before harvesting. Cotton, being a biological product, typically contains particles of cotton leaves called trash. The amount of trash also influences the cotton’s value since the textile mill must remove trash before processing. The fiber’s strength also is an important measurement that ultimately influences the fabrics made from these fibers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) establishes classing standards in cooperation with the entire cotton industry.

Marketing

Cotton is ready for sale after instrument classing establishes the quality parameters for each bale. The marketing of cotton is a complex operation that includes all transactions involving buying, selling or reselling from the time the cotton is ginned until it reaches the textile mill.

Growers usually sell their cotton to a local buyer or merchant after it has been ginned and baled, but if they decide against immediate sale they can store it and borrow money against it. Since it is a non-perishable crop, cotton stored in a government-approved warehouse provides a secure basis for a monetary loan.

Ginning

Ginning

From the field, seed cotton moves to nearby gins for separation of lint and seed. The cotton first goes through dryers to reduce moisture content and then through cleaning equipment to remove foreign matter.

 

These operations facilitate processing and improve fiber quality. The cotton is then air conveyed to gin stands where revolving circular saws pull the lint through closely spaced ribs that prevent the seed from passing through. The lint is removed from the saw teeth by air blasts or rotating brushes, and then compressed into bales weighing approximately 500 pounds. Cotton is then moved to a warehouse for storage until it is shipped to a textile mill for use.

A typical gin will process about 12 bales per hour, while some of today’s more modern gins may process as many as 60 bales an hour.

Harvesting & Seed Cotton Storage

Harvesting

While harvesting is one of the final steps in the production of cotton crops, it is one of the most important. The crop must be harvested before weather can damage or completely ruin its quality and reduce yield.

Cotton is machine harvested in the U.S., beginning in July in south Texas and in October in more northern areas of the Belt.

Stripper harvesters, used chiefly in Texas and Oklahoma, have rollers or mechanical brushes that remove the entire boll from the plant. In the rest of the Belt, spindle pickers are used. These cotton pickers pull the cotton from the open bolls using revolving barbed spindles that entwine the fiber and release it after it has separated from the boll.

Seed Cotton Storage

Once harvested, seed cotton must be removed from the harvester and stored before it is delivered to the gin. Seed cotton is removed from the harvester and placed in modules, relatively compact units of seed cotton. A cotton module, shaped like a giant bread loaf, can weigh up to 25,000 pounds.

Plant Diseases, Soil Conservation & Irrigation

Plant Diseases

Cotton diseases have been contained largely through the use of resistant cotton varieties. Rotation to non-host crops such as grain or corn also breaks the disease cycle. Nematodes, while not truly a disease, cause the plant to exhibit disease-like symptoms. Nematodes are microscopic worm-like organisms that attack cotton’s roots causing the plant to stop growing, and as a result, causes reduced yield. Crop rotation is the primary method of managing for nematodes.

Soil Conservation

Cotton producers expend extra efforts to minimize soil erosion. Cotton is sensitive to wind-blown soil because the plant’s growing point is perched on a delicate stem, both of which areeasily damaged by abrasion from wind-blown soil. For that reason, many farmers use minimum tillage practices which leave plant residue on the soil surface thereby preventing wind and water erosion.

Conservation tillage, the practice of covering the soil in crop residue year ‘round, is common in windy areas. A growing number of producers also are moving to minimum tillage, or a no-till system, to reduce soil movement. In the rain belt, land terracing and contour tillage are standard practices on sloping land to prevent the washing away of valuable topsoil.

 

Irrigation

The cotton plant’s root system is very efficient at seeking moisture and nutrients from the soil. From an economic standpoint, cotton’s water use efficiency allows cotton to generate more revenue per gallon of water than any other major field crop.

Most of the U.S. cotton acreage is grown only on rain moisture. A trend toward supplemental irrigation to carry a field through drought has increased in acreage and helped stabilize yields. Cotton’s peak need for water occurs during July, when it is most vulnerable to water stress. A limited supply of irrigation water is being stretched over many acres via the use of highly efficient irrigation methods such as low energy precision applications, sprinklers, surge and drip irrigation. Not only has irrigation stabilized yields for many growers, it also has allowed production in the desert states of California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Weed Control And Insect Management

Weed Control

Cotton grows slowly in the spring and can be shaded out easily by weeds. If weeds begin to overpower the seedling cotton, drastic reductions in yield can result. Later in the season, cotton leaves fully shade the ground and suppress mid-to-late season weeds. For these reasons, weed control is focused on providing a 6 to 8-week weed-free period directly following planting.

Producers employ close cultivation and planters that place the cottonseed deep into moist soil, leaving weed seeds in high and dry soil. Herbicides or cultivation controls weeds between the rows.

Insect Management

The cotton plant has evolved with numerous damaging insects. These insects, if left unattended, would virtually eliminate the harvestable crop in most cotton-producing areas. Plants infested with leaf-feeding insects are able to compensate somewhat by producing more leaves. Many of cotton’s insects, however, feed on squares and bolls. This reduces the yield and leads to delays in crop development, often into the frost or rainy season.

The cotton industry utilizes a multifaceted approach to the problem of insects. Known as Integrated Pest Management (IPM), it keeps pests below yield-damaging levels. IPM is dependent on natural populations of beneficial insects to suppress damaging pests. Additionally, some cotton varieties are genetically bred to be less attractive to insects.

Some plants are improved by modern biotechnology, which causes the plant to be resistant to certain damaging worms. Other modern biocontrol strategies also are used. For example, where populations of damaging pink bollworm insects break out, sterile insect releases are used to target the pest and minimize disruption to the beneficial insects. Also, cultural practices that promote earliness and short-season production reduce the vulnerability of cotton production to pests. Plant protection chemicals are often used to prevent devastating crop losses to insects. All plant protection methods used on plants in the U.S. are thoroughly evaluated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assure food safety and protection to humans, animals and to the environment.

 

Crop Production And Planting

The Cotton Belt spans the southern half of the Unites States, from Virginia to California. Cotton is grown in 17 states and is a major crop in 14. Its growing season of approximately 150 to 180 days is the longest of any annually planted crop in the country. Since there is much variation in climate and soil, production practices differ from region to region. In the western states, for example, nearly the entire crop is irrigated.

Planting begins in February in south Texas and as late as June in northern areas of the Cotton Belt. Land preparation actually starts in the fall, shortly after harvest. Stalks from the old crop are shredded to reduce food supplies for over-wintering pests. Usually, this residue is left on the surface to protect the soil from erosion. The use of heavy mechanical harvesters compacts the soil, sometimes requiring tillage to loosen the soil for the next crop’s roots.

Planting

Planting is accomplished with 6, 8, 10 or 12-row precision planters that place the seed at a uniform depth and interval. Young cotton seedlings emerge from the soil within a week or two after planting, depending on temperature and moisture conditions. Squares, or flower buds, form a month to six weeks later and creamy to dark yellow blossoms appear in another three weeks. Pollen from the flower’s stamen is carried to the stigma, thus pollinating the ovary. Over the next three days, the blossoms gradually turn pink and then dark red before falling off, leaving the tiny fertile ovary attached to the plant. It ripens and enlarges into a pod called a cotton boll.

Individual cells on the surface of seeds start to elongate the day the red flower falls off (abscission), reaching a final length of over one inch during the first month after abscission. The fibers thicken for the next month, forming a hollow cotton fiber inside the watery boll. Bolls open 50 to 70 days after bloom, letting air in to dry the white, clean fiber and fluff it for harvest.

Economics of Cotton

A National Cotton Council analysis affirms that today’s modern cotton production system provides significant benefits to rural America’s economy and environment.
Healthy rural economies are based on stable farm income, and cotton yields and prices are often among the healthiest of all field crops, vegetable or fruit.

Cotton continues to be the basic resource for thousands of useful products manufactured in the U.S. and overseas. U.S. textile manufacturers use an annual average of 7.6 million bales of cotton. A bale is about 500 pounds of cotton. More than half of this quantity (57%) goes into apparel, 36% into home furnishings and 7% into industrial products. If all the cotton produced annually in the U.S. were used in making a single product, such as blue jeans or men’s dress shirts, it would make more than 3 billion pairs of jeans and more than 13 billion men’s dress shirts.

An often-overlooked component of the crop is the vast amount of cottonseed that is produced along with the fiber. Annual cottonseed production is about 6.5 billion tons, of which about two-thirds is fed whole to livestock. The remaining seed is crushed, producing a high-grade salad oil and a high protein meal for livestock, dairy and poultry feed. More than 154 million gallons of cottonseed oil are used for food products ranging from margarine and cooking oils to salad dressing.

The average U.S. crop moving from the field through cotton gins, warehouses, oilseed mills and textile mills to the consumer, accounts for more than $35 billion in products and services. This injection of spending is a vital element in the health of rural economies in the 17 major cotton-producing states from Virginia to California.

The gross dollar value of cotton and its extensive system of production, harvesting and ginning provides countless jobs for mechanics, distributors of farm machinery, consultants, crop processors and people in other support services. Other allied industries such as banking, transportation, warehousing and merchandising also benefit from a viable U.S. cotton production system.