Effects of harvesting and ginning practices on Southern High Plains cotton: textile quality

The impact of the harvesting method, as well as the ginning method (saw or high-speed roller ginning), on textile quality was studied over three years of cotton production in the Southern High Plains. The Southern High Plains region is the largest cotton production area of the USA. The Southern High Plains and the Texas Gulf Coast are the only areas of the USA where brush-roll stripper harvesting is common, alongside traditional spindle picker machine harvesting. Different harvesting methods lead to differences in micronaire, maturity, length distribution, color and non-lint content within the bale. Ginning differences were primarily found to be length and length distribution related. Lint was processed into rotor-spun, carded ring-spun and combed ring-spun medium count yarns to determine the impacts of harvesting and ginning methods on textile product quality. Rotor spinning produced comparable quality yarns regardless of harvest or ginning method, while carded ring-spun yarns showed statistical differences in quality, with spindle-picked cottons having greater uniformity and higher tenacity. Combing was able to eliminate any functional differences in quality due to the pre-mill handling of the cottons at the expense of increased noil levels for stripper-harvested cottons. There were no differences in ends-down during ring spinning, regardless of harvest and ginning method, although cottons produced with high-speed roller ginning were able to be spun at higher spindle speeds, which equates to higher production speeds.