PIMA SEED COTTON CLEANING FOR MAXIMUM PROFIT

A cleaning study using pima cotton attempted to determine the optimum amount of overhead cleaning (cleaning prior to ginning). The cleaning machines consisted of cylinder cleaners and stick machines. Five clean ing levels (treatments) were tested which consisted of one, three, fiv e, seven or nine cleaning machines. Overhead cleaning efficiency range d from 54 to 83%, while the individual machine efficiencies ranged fro m 5 to 27%. Turnout did not change between treatments. Color grade imp roved between treatments, but never obtained a grade 2. Bale value con tinued to increase with additional cleaning; this was due to continued improvement in color grade with no change in turnout. The highest bal e value was achieved when using nine seed cotton cleaning machines. Be cause using nine cleaners is unrealistic, no recommendation was made o n a particular seed cotton cleaning level based on bale value; instead , general comments concerning cleaning level and color grade were made .