Questions are often raised about whether trace elements are required on cotton. Zinc deficiency has been confirmed in areas where topsoil has been removed, and zinc application is common in many areas, despite a lack of evidence for a general zinc response. More recently, copper has been proposed as deficient in some areas. With this background it was decided to sample soil and plants from a number of cotton fields from Warren to Boggabilla. The soil was sampled to 30 cm depth as near to planting time as possible. Leaf and whole plant samples were taken from the same fields during flowering. These samples were analysed for zinc, copper, iron and manganese. In addition plant samples were taken at regular intervals from experiments at Narrabri to determine the pattern and extent of uptake of each trace element.