Twenty cotton mutant lines developed at Texas Tech University were grown in 2005 over 2 rows of 640' each. The plots were stripper-harvested and the seed-cotton was ginned with two different setups: (1) one representative seed-cotton sample was collected from each line and processed on a 10 saw table-top gin, commonly used in breeding programs with no lint cleaning; (2) the bulk of seed-cotton was processed on a ginning/lint cleaning installation simulating industrial ginning operations. The ginned lint was tested for fiber properties (HVI and AFIS) and spinning performance at the International Textile Center of Texas Tech University. Two spinning processes were tested: laboratory-scale or micro-spinning and industrial-scale ring spinning. Fiber data and yarn results were used to assess the industrial potential of the 20 mutant lines and test the validity of laboratory-scale methods in ranking experimental genotypes. This paper presents a progress report discussing the pertinence of AFIS and yarn data in the selection process, with a focus on the usefulness of micro-spinning protocols in cotton breeding programs.