It is important for ginners to monitor classing and leaf grade in order to maximize grower returns in terms of classing grade, and to reduce fibre damage. The grade from samples drawn during ginning will determine the amount of drying and/or lint cleaning the ginner applies during the ginning of that cotton. Currently most ginners assess classing and leaf grade manually by assessing samples drawn from baled cotton against USDA physical standards. Objective measurement of fibre quality during ginning represents the future of decision-making in ginning. Recently some Australian gins have purchased in-line instrument systems that compare digital images of samples drawn automatically after lint cleaning with images of USDA physical standards. The potential for in-line systems in gins to monitor and control fibre quality has long been recognised.

The objectives of this project were to compare results from Uster Technologies IntelliGin system, an in-line leaf, colour and moisture monitor for cotton ginning, with leaf and colour grade results from the standard High Volume Instrument (HVI), also built by Uster. Researchers studied the statistical relationships between the leaf and colour grades measured by HVI instrument with those measured by the IntelliGin system. The datasets with corresponding HVI and IntelliGin results were supplied from three gins representing three growing regions. From each region between 65 and 67 sets of HVI data, representing about 200 bales after module averaging, were gathered. While this is only a small snap shot of Australian cotton production, the dataset reflects standard leaf and colour grade values found in Australian cotton. It is noted the subsequent relationships measured would have been improved with a larger set of samples containing a wider range of USDA leaf and grade classifications.