National Cotton Council of America
Beltwide Cotton Conferences
January 8-11, 2008
Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center
Nashville, Tennessee
The Cotton Foundation

Recorded Presentations

Friday, January 11, 2008 - 9:45 AM

An Expensive Bale of Cotton

Emerson E. Tucker, Plains Cotton Cooperative Association, 3301 E. 50th Street, Lubbock, TX 79404

Two yarn manufacturers (spinners) who are customers of Plains Cotton Cooperative Association (PCCA) located in two different countries located outside the U.S.A. provided to PCCA different fabrics that had contamination in the fabrics. The fabrics were returned by the fabric manufacturers to the yarn manufacturers so they could determine what caused the contamination. The fabrics eventually were passed on to PCCA since PCCA provided the cotton to the textile mills.

An on-going investigation into the cause of the problem has been instigated by PCCA. Progress was accelerated when similar samples of contamination were observed in a spinning test project being done at the International Textile Center (ITC).

Preliminary results indicate that the problem originally may have been caused by the producer and then magnified at the cotton gin.

The presentation will include PowerPoint pictures showing contamination in the fabric, yarn and cotton bale as well as the material that caused the problem.

By the time of the presentation I hope to have additional information that will definitely show where the point of contamination originated. Right now there haven’t been any claims by the customer to PCCA because of this problem but it will be an expensive problem for someone.