Cotton lint has traditionally been marketed based on weight without regard to the lint moisture content (mc), but with restrictions regarding excessively high mc. Recently the industry recommended keeping the mc of lint in bales below 7.5% (wet basis) and the loan program added a definition of wet cotton as that which exceeded 7.5% at any point in the bale. Radio frequency energy is absorbed by water more readily than by cotton lint and can therefore be used to estimate the mc of cotton. Uster Technologies, Inc. has designed and built a meter designed to obtain on the order of 40 individual readings from one side of the cotton bale after ginning. These are used to obtain a bale mc. Bales of cotton were formed with varying weight, drying, and moisture restoration and readings taken of the bale. The bales were then opened and multiple lint samples obtained for mc determination by the oven method. These data were compared and the results documented.