The main recommendation arising from six and a half years of research into how to

gin cotton with an emphasis on quality relates to practices outside of ginning, rather

than ginning itself.

The research in part produced a rigorous comparison of Australian cotton against

cotton from a similar industry (USA). We lost. While Australian cotton had several

good attributes, it was shown to be appreciably higher in Nep content.

Other individual studies showed the quality aspects of UNR cotton, of combinations

of cotton moisture and heating levels, and the relevant importance of a wide range

of quality attributes of lint in predicting a wide range of quality attributes of yarn

and fabric. Initial work was also carried out into how much decisions taken during

growing, affect cotton quality post harvest.

The main outcome of this research is to show that there is a Ginner's Paradox.

There are two main groups of quality attributes for cotton lint. The first group is

concerned with cleanliness and appearance (leaf, colour where weathering is not an

issue, preparation, etc). The second group relate to performance in the hands of the

industrial buyer (several length attributes, plus Neps and immature fibre content).

The former affect bale price strongly, but quality in the hands of the industrial buyer

little or not at all, where as the latter affect quality in the hands of the industrial

buyer strongly but bale price little or not at all.

The paradox for the ginner is that he can gin for best results in one or other of these

groups of attributes, but not both.

Current classing practice emphasizes the former, but punishes or ignores the latter.

For pragmatic reasons, ginning practice follows classing practice. The end result is

that an opportunity to produce a step upwards in quality across the Australian

industry is going begging.

Those classing practices must change before the results of this research can be

adopted.