An agricultural magazine for kids From Georgia Agriculture in the Classroom
COTTON
Who is the top cotton producer in the world?
China!
The Land of Cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy fiber that comes from a plant that humans have been using for both food and clothing for thousands of years. Scientists searching caves in Mexico found bits of cotton bolls and pieces of cotton cloth that proved to be at least 7,000 years old. They also found that the cotton itself was much like that grown in America today. In the Indus River Valley in Pakistan, cotton was grown, spun and woven into cloth 3,000 years BC. At about the same time, natives of Egypt’s Nile valley were making and wearing cotton clothing. Arab merchants brought cotton cloth to Europe about 800 A.D. When Columbus discovered America in 1492, he found cotton growing in the Bahama Islands. By 1500, cotton was generally known throughout the world. Cottonseeds are believed to have been planted in Florida in 1556 and in Virginia in 1607. By 1616, colonists were growing cotton along the James River in Virginia. Today, there are 17 primary cotton producing states, all located in the southern half of the United States. Georgia ranks in the top 3 states. The other states are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Growing Cotton in the Classroom
Note: Because of the money invested in the Boll Weevil Eradication Program, (BWEP), to plant cotton in a school garden, the teacher responsible must contact the Georgia BWEP office in Valdosta which grants special permission on a case by case basis for cotton to be grown for demonstration purposes. Their phone number is 229-469-4038. You do not need permission to plant in a classroom.
Materials: Potting soil, small containers (milk, yogurt or margarine tubs), cotton seeds, water Instructions: 1. Have each student fill their container with potting soil to within 1” of the top. 2. Place three or four cotton seeds in the container and cover them with soil. Soil should be moist, but not wet. 3. Place the container in sunlight and rotate it a quarter turn daily. 4. Sprouts should emerge after 7-10 days. As the plants grow, they can be transplanted to gallon milk jugs with the tops cut off. 5. Measure plant growth twice a week and record all observations in a science journal. 6. Vary the growing conditions by using different soil types, amounts of water, and sunlight to see the difference growing conditions can have on the plant’s progress. Scan here to see video of cotton being ginned
The Invention That Changed the World
In the early days of the United States, people separated cotton seeds from cotton fiber by hand. It took one person an average of 10 hours to de-seed one pound of cotton. In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, a hand-cranked machine that enabled one person to separate 50 pounds of cotton in a day. Today, modern cotton gins can process 5,760 pounds of cotton lint in one hour.
Who was Eli Whitney?
Eli Whitney was an American inventor who created the cotton gin and pushed the “interchangeable parts” mode of production. He was the son of a small farmer in Massachusetts. He had a skill for working with machines and by the time he was an adolescent, he was helping area farmers repair their tools and equipment. Whitney worked several years as a mechanic earning enough money to attend Yale College (later Yale University). When he graduated in 1792, he accepted a position as a tutor in the home of a wealthy South Carolina planter. When he arrived, the position was already taken and he accepted an invitation to stay as a guest at Mulberry Grove, a plantation near Savannah owned by Catherine Greene, the widow of the Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene. While there, he had the opportunity to meet area farmers who shared their struggles with growing cotton and the labor required to separate the seeds from the fiber of the upland cotton. Greene and her plantation manager, Phineas Miller, challenged him to find a better way to separate the seed from the cotton lint. In 1793, Whitney’s cotton engine (or “gin”) consisted of wire teeth set in a wooden drum that, when rotated, separated cotton fibers from the seed. A second, smaller drum revolved at the same time in the opposite direction to sweep the cotton fibers from the wire teeth. Whitney’s invention revolutionized the cotton industry and increased production dramatically. You may think Scan here Eli Whitney made a lot of to learn more money from his invention, about Eli but because of a loophole Whitney with the patent, farmers made their own versions of the gin and claimed it as their own invention. Eli Whitney is considered the father of mass production. http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/cotton-gin-and-eli-whitney
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HmhT41ELfKY
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AgMag/Fall 2015
How much cotton does Georgia produce?
Approx. 1.4 million acres
How does this fluffy cotton grow?
In Georgia, farmers plant cotton from April until late June.
Seeding is done with mechanical planters which cover as many as 12 rows at a time. The planter opens a small trench or furrow in each row, drops in the right amount of seed, covers them and packs the earth on top of them. Machines called cultivators are used to uproot weeds and grass, which compete with the cotton plant for soil nutrients, sunlight and water. Six to eight weeks after planting, flower buds called squares appear on the cotton plants. In about three weeks, the blossoms open. Their flowers change colors from creamy white to yellow to pink and finally to a dark red. After three days, the flower withers and falls off, leaving green pods which are called cotton bolls. Inside the boll, moist fibers grow and push out from the newly formed seeds. The fibers continue to expand under the warm sun and, as the boll ripens, it turns brown. Approximately 16 weeks into the growing season, the boll splits apart and the fluffy cotton fiber bursts forth ready for harvest. The cotton will be mechanically harvested in another four weeks. Throughout the growing season, farmers check for disease and insects, such as the boll weevil. They add fertilizer if necessary and if they have irrigation equipment, they apply water using this method.
The
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stages:
2. When the bud first
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Approximately 5-7 days after the cotton bloom opens, it dries and falls from the plant, leaving the developing boll.
opens, it is white in color. It is usually pollinated a few hours after it opens.
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This is called a square and is the flower bud of the cotton plant.
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3. On the second day,
the pollinated bloom will become pink in color. On the third day, it is more red.
otton was picked by hand until the mid-20th century. Although the first mechanical picking device was invented in 1850, it was nearly 100 years later before an efficient mechanical picker was invented. The Rust brothers from Mississippi invented a one-row mechanical picker in the early 1930s. Today’s cotton pickers can harvest up to eight rows of cotton at a time. In Georgia cotton harvest usually begins in late September or early October. When the cotton is harvested, it is pressed into large modules, which look like giant loaves of bread, or into large round bales. Specially designed trucks pick up the modules and move them to the gin. Sometimes called “White Gold,” cotton is the most widely grown row crop in Georgia. Records show the most cotton acres planted in Georgia were in 1914, with 5.15 million. Today Georgia typically plants more than 1 million acres per year.
AgMag/Fall 2015
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As the moist fibers ripen, they expand in the warm sunshine until they split the boll apart and the fluffy cotton bursts out.
Did you know?
Samuel Slater built the first water-powered cotton mill in the United States. It was built in Rhode Island in the early 1790’s and Slater is considered “the father of the American factory system.” Scan here to see video of cotton being picked
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BHE82R4i2Vo
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Cotton is an all-season fabric...
...cool in the summer/warm in the winter!
What happens to all this cotton? The insect that changed cotton
What insect made such an impact on the cotton industry that there is even a statue of it in Enterprise, Alabama? The boll weevil! There are several pests than can damage cotton crops, but the boll weevil was the chief pest of cotton in Georgia and other cotton producing states since the early 1900s. Yield losses because of this insect reduced cotton acreage in Georgia from a high of 5.2 million acres in 1914 to 2.6 million in 1923. The primary damage occurs when the female boll weevils lay eggs in the developing squares or bolls of the cotton plant. When the eggs hatch, the larvae feed on the boll. The economic devastation of the boll weevil resulted in farmers planting other crops such as peanuts, which was good for overall agriculture production. However, we still needed cotton and if the boll weevil could be controlled, it could be a strong crop for Georgia and the south. Scientists spent years researching the best way to eliminate the boll weevil and improve cotton production. As a result of this research and funding coshared by federal and state agencies as well as cotton farmers, Georgia growers began participating in a program called the Boll Weevil Eradication Program (BWEP) to eradicate the boll weevil. Over several years, the program was successful and Georgia farmers began planting more cotton. Since the eradication of the boll weevil, insecticide on cotton has been reduced by approximately 75% and losses in yield reduced by 50%. The BWEP is an ongoing program because the boll weevil can reinfest a field if it not managed correctly.
What does a cotton scout do?
Cotton insect scouts regularly check the crop for insect damage. They take samples to analyze the type of insects and damage. By knowing the kind, number and location of the insects and their damage within a field, the farmer can make sound decisions about insect management. Some of the pests they look for are thrips, tobacco budworms (which also like cotton), stink bugs, and boll weevils. Schools are offered in early summer to people interested in doing this job.
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From the field to the gin
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otton modules or round bales are delivered to the cotton gin for processing. During the ginning process, the seeds and crop residue are removed from the cotton lint using several modern gin stands (modern ginning machines), where circular saws with small, sharp teeth pluck the fiber from the seed. The cotton is then packaged into bales that weigh approximately 500 pounds. The cotton is then graded by fiber length, strength, and color in a process called classing. After classing, the bales are sold to textile mills or stored in a warehouse to be sold at a later date. The crop residue, called gin trash, can be sold to livestock farmers as feed or returned to the cotton farmers’ fields to be mulched into the soil as nutrients for the next crop.
From the gin to the textile mill
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extile mills spin the cotton fibers into the threads, which are then woven or knitted into clothing, sheets, towels and other cloth items. Textile mills purchase cotton bales based on their classing. Several bales of the same class are blended together to make a consistent group of fibers. Carding machines process more than 100 pounds of cotton per hour into a funnel-shaped device called a trumpet. The trumpet produces a soft, rope-like strand of cotton known as a sliver (pronounced SLY-ver). Next is a process called drawing, where the strands of sliver are blended together and twisted into thinner strands. Ring spinning machines draw and twist the cotton until it reaches the thickness needed for weaving or knitting. These smaller strands are called yarns. Yarns of different sizes are woven or knitted in many ways to create different fabrics. There are three common types of weaving: plain, twill and satin. Machine knitting is very similar to hand knitting, but on a much larger scale. Modern knitting machines use over 2,500 needles and can make over one million stitches a minute. After the fabrics are dyed with colors or printed with patterns, they enter the final stage of production—finishing. Some of the most popular finishes include pre-shrinking, wrinkle-resistance or water-repellency. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kH_b3Heo48I
Lint:
This is the cotton fiber obtained by the ginning process once the seeds, leaves, and other trash have been removed. These longer fibers are baled and shipped to textile mills to make clothing, towels, sheets, and many other items we use every day.
Scan here to see how cotton yarn is made
AgMag/Fall 2015
...fiber and seed!
Cotton is actually two crops:
There is more to cotton than you think! Linters
Seeds
The seeds of the cotton plants have value, too. Cotton plants produce 155 pounds of seed for every 100 pounds of lint. These seeds are used to make hundreds of different products. After the seeds are removed from the lint at the gin, they are shipped to other manufacturers for cottonseed products.
Meal
Linters are short fibers around the seed that are not removed during the ginning process. These fibers are removed by cutting or rubbing the seeds together. They can be used to make medical pads and gauze, twine, candle wicks, mops, carpet yarns, and plastic. They are also commonly used to produce smokeless gunpowder and the “paper� used in U.S. currency.
Gin trash can be used for c ompost.
Cottonseed meal is the ground-up kernel, or inside of the seed. It is the second-most valuable part of the cottonseed. Meal is widely used in livestock feeds and as fertilizer for lawns, gardens and flower beds.
Cottonseed oil
Scan here to see footage of a Cotton Seed Oil Press
Cottonseed oil is removed from the kernel by large mechanical presses that squeeze out the oil. The oil is the most valuable part of the cottonseed. Most commonly, it is used as cooking oil and in food products like salad dressing, mayonnaise and margarine. The oil can also be used to make soups, cosmetics, rubber, plastics, explosives, and many other products.
Cotton hull
The hull is the protective outer coating of the seed. To remove the hull, seeds pass through a series of knives that cut the hull and separate it from the kernel. Cottonseed hulls are used for livestock feed, plastics and the drilling mud that is used in oil and gas wells.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uW1TmMEpI2Y
AgMag/Fall 2015
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Cotton can absorb up to....
...27 times its weight in water!
This and That About Cotton If money doesn’t grow on trees… tory The T-ShT-irshtirS ts were
The earliest in the U.S. issued to sailors e late 1800s. Navy during th shirts were Those original p-length unelbow– and hi resembled a dershirts that hen laid out perfect “T” w The T-shirt on a flat surface. ed over the was transform ecades and, next several d had become by the 1950s, f the civilian a main part o wardrobe.
We always hear that money doesn’t grow on trees...but the cotton used to make it does grow on plants! U.S. currency is made up of 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen. These fibers are what makes money so durable. If money was printed on paper made from trees, it could disintegrate if it got wet or washed in the washing machine.
Did you know?
Thomas Edison used a carbonized cotton and linen thread to be the filament on the light bulb. To carbonize the thread, it had to be baked at a high temperature in an oven and deprived of oxygen until it charred. This version of the light bulb burned 13 hours the first time, Research at Texas One bale of which was longer than Tech indicates that any other version at low-grade cot- cotton makes: that time. ton is effective in • 409 men’s sports absorbing ocean shirts based oil spills. • 690 terry bath towels One pound of cot- • 765 men’s dress shirts ton can absorb 30 • 1,217 men’s T-shirts pounds of dense • 1,256 pillow cases crude oil. • 215 pairs of jeans The Wright Broth- • 249 bed sheets ers used cotton • 2,104 boxers One regulation size fabric to cover the • 3,085 diapers wings of their first baseball contains 150 plane. yards of cotton.
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Scan here for Cotton Campus activities and information
How many feet? How many inches?
One bale of cotton can make 313,600 $100 dollar bills. Write this
number in expanded form. How much money is this?
Blue Jean R evolution
The first blu e jeans we re invented by Levi Strauss in 1 873. They were made from denim fabric and featured riv ets in the p o cke ners for stre ngth. These t corjeans were original created for miners, but eventually they becam e the work pants for many A main merican men. Toda y, blue jean s a re found in nearly ev ery America n wardrobe.
www.cottoncampus.org
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AgMag/Fall 2015
Who invented the cotton gin?
Eli Whitney!
Cotton Activities Scouting For Cotton Words! C A Z
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COTTON GIN FIBER LINT PLANTER CULTIVATOR SQUARE BOLLS HARVEST WEEVIL PICKER MODULE BALE CLASSING TEXTILE CARDING SLIVER YARNS FINISHING SCOUT SEEDS OIL MEAL
Show what you know about COTTON
1. Where was evidence of cotton usage first discovered? a. India; b. America; c. Mexico; d. Pakistan 2. What insect almost destroyed the cotton industry? a. Thrips; b. Boll Weevil; c. Tobacco budworm; d. Stink bug 3. Who invented the cotton gin? a. Samuel Slater; b. Eli Whitney; c. The Rust Brothers; d. Levi Strauss 4. How many pounds of cotton lint can a modern gin process in 1 hour? a. 5,760; b. 50; c. 250; d. 4,650 5. How much does a cotton bale weigh? a. 700 lbs; b. 1,000 lbs; c. 580 lbs; d. 500 lbs 6. The left over crop residue removed from the lint of the gin is AgMag/Fall 2015
called _____________. a. modules; b. linters; c. gin trash; d. bolls 7. What do you call the initial soft, rope-like strands of cotton produced at a textile mill? a. slivers; b. yarn; c. fabric; d. thread 8. Cotton can be used in the production of which of the following products. a. potato chips; b. mayonnaise; c. explosives; d. all of the above 9. A cotton plant produces _____ pounds of seed for every 100 pounds of lint. a. 300; b. 250; c. 480; d. 155 10. The most valuable part of the cottonseed is ___________ a. linters; b. cottonseed meal; c. cottonseed oil; d. cottonseed hulls
Since cotton can absorb approximately 27 times its own weight of water, complete the table below. Cotton Weight (lbs)
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Water absorbed (lbs) 27
Make a classroom quilt!
MATERIALS: square-, rectangle– and triangle-shaped fabric scraps; square-foot pieces of cardboard or heavy paper; and fabric glue. 1. Give each student a square-foot piece of cardboard or heavy paper and enough scraps of fabric to cover it. 2. Have each student design their own quilt square and glue the pieces of fabric together. 3. Make a classroom quilt by taping the students’ quilt squares together. 4. Students will write a paragraph explaining the design of their quilt square. Go to the Cotton AgMag section at www.gfbfoundation.org to see comments from the teachers who field tested the magazine and how they matched to state standards. You can also find cotton photos, useful links, and extended activities as we obtain them.
Scan here for answers to the word search and questions http://www.gfbfoundation.org/agmag/2015answers.pdf
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Cotton growers
Ryne and Heather Brannen Statesboro, GA How long have you been in cotton production? I farm with my father and brothers. This is my fourth season farming in my own name. My family has been producing cotton continuously since 1989. Tell us about your farm. My father, my brother, and myself all work full time on the farm, along with three full-time employees. My wife Heather works as the Agriculture Education teacher at Metter High School and helps on the farm when she has time. This year we have about 3200 acres of cotton and 800 acres of peanuts. About 5% of our acres are irrigated, and 95% are dryland (no irrigation). We use conservation tillage and cover crops to help prevent soil erosion, control weeds, and preserve soil moisture. We use GPS to soil sample and apply fertilizer and pesticides. This helps us conserve natural resources by not overapplying fertilizers and chemicals, and helps us get them where they are needed in the field. We typically plant our cotton and peanuts beginning the last week of April through the first week of June and harvest from the beginning of October through the end of December. What is involved in growing cotton? We take soil samples in the winter to determine how much fertilizer we will need, apply herbicides to kill winter weeds or cover crops in March and April, apply fertilizer at this time also, plant from the end of April to the beginning of June, apply post-emergence herbicides and side-dress fertilizer in June and July, apply plant growth regulators and insecticides (only if we have to) during August, defoliate in September, and harvest in October and November. What subjects in school have helped you the most as a producer? (Ryne) I graduated with a bachelor’s in agribusiness from The University of Georgia, followed by a Master’s in Plant Protection and Pest Management, also from UGA. My business classes have helped me the most, especially classes on management and finances. I didn’t need to go to school to learn how to drive a tractor. School taught me how to manage my business well so I can keep driving a tractor and get paid to do it. What do you like best about being a farmer? Being outside in nature every day and working with living things. I also love how the challenges I mentioned above keep me humble and remind me that we human beings are not in control like we think we are sometimes.
Agribusiness Jaclyn D. Ford Dixon Gin Co., Inc., Alapaha, GA My parents began our farm supply business in 1985. After only one year out of college and marrying my husband, I returned home to help run the gin in 2001 when we purchased it. My brothers are also involved in the family business. One (Carl Mathis Dixon) oversees the farm supply and peanut buying point operations. The other (Quentin Dixon) looks after all of our farming operations. Please explain your job. At harvest time in the fall, we drive our trucks to the cotton fields to pick up the cotton, so it can be processed at the gin. Once it arrives at the gin, we weigh each load and put it on our yard to await the ginning process. The ginning process involves removing the seed from the lint. It is basically the same process that Eli Whitney came up with years ago only much more mechanized and technologically advanced. The seed is sold to dairies for feed or oil mills for making cottonseed oil. After the cotton goes through the ginning process, the lint is compressed into a 500 pound bale and then stored in a warehouse to await selling and transportation to a mill (often times in another country) where it is spun into yarn or thread and eventually cloth and finally the clothing we wear. We gin the cotton over about a three month period. After that, we are busy selling and shipping seed and bales. What is the biggest challenge with your job? The cotton market is a futures market (Supply/Demand driven). The market price sometimes makes it difficult to sell the cotton and help the producer get the price he needs to make growing it profitable. What do you like best about your job? I enjoy all the people I get to work with and meet. I get to know local farmers, and I also get to meet people from all over the country (sometimes world) involved in cotton production. What subjects in school have helped you the most in your job? My agriculture business classes have definitely come in handy. Like most jobs, a lot of what I do can be learned “on the job”. I have a B.S. from The University of Georgia. I always think college helps to prepare you and exposes you to such a diversity of people. It also shows endurance that we can stick to something and see it to through to the end.
Special thanks to the following resources:
For the complete interviews with Jaclyn Ford and the Brannens, visit www.gfbfoundation.org and click on Cotton Ag Mag.
Georgia Cotton Commission www.georgiacottoncommission.org National Cotton Council of America https://www.cotton.org/pubs/cottoncounts/resources.cfm Cotton Incorporated — Cotton Campus www.cottoncampus.org Mississippi Ag in the Classroom (Cotton Ag Mag) Arkansas Ag in the Classroom (Cotton Ag Mag) USDA Agricultural Research Service
The Georgia Ag Mag is a project of Georgia Agriculture in the Classroom with funding provided from the GFB Foundation for Agriculture. Visit the website at www.gfbfoundation.org. GFB Foundation for Agriculture Jed Evans, Executive Director P. O. Box 7068 Macon, GA 31209-7068 478-474-0679 Ext. 5230 jcevans@gfbfoundation.org
The mission of Georgia Agriculture in the Classroom is to provide educational resources and training opportunities to assist formal and informal educators to educate about agriculture while meeting state standards for teaching across the curriculum. GA-AITC is a program of Georgia Farm Bureau. For more information, contact Donna Hellwig Rocker Georgia Ag in the Classroom P. O. Box 7068 • Macon, GA 31209-7068 478-474-0679 Ext. 5365 • dhrocker@gfb.org