Preliminary Cotton and Field Trash Studies Using near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Cotton is a cash crop that is important in the world market.  Development of instrumental techniques to measure cotton quality parameters which are accurate, precise, and fast would be beneficial.  Cotton trash (leaf, etc.) and field trash (plastic bags, etc.) comingled with lint adversely affects the quality associated with harvesting and processing of cotton lint.  Conventional instrumental testing techniques, including the Shirley Analyzer and the High Volume Instrument (HVI), presently do not specifically determine the types of cotton trash present with the lint.  A program was employed to determine the specific identity of cotton and different field trash types at the same time using Near-Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy.  Recent results reveal that identification of cotton and field trash types is feasible with NIR spectroscopy with a high degree of accuracy.