Ginning And Pressing
Ginning And
The seed cotton arrives at the gin in round bales or modules.
The first step in the ginning process is where the cotton is vacuumed into tubes that carry it to a dryer. Cotton must be ginned with a moisture level of 5%. The cotton is dried out if it is too wet or water is added if it is too dry to ensure the correct moisture level.
Next, the cotton goes through several stages of cleaning equipment to remove leaf trash, sticks, dirt and other foreign matter.
After cleaning, the cotton is then ready for separation in the gin stand. The gin stand removes the seed from the lint. Most cotton is ginned with saw gins where fast moving circular saws grip the fibers and pull them through narrow slots.
The raw fiber, now called lint, has any remaining trash removed and makes its way through another series of pipes to a press where it is squashed into bales under very high pressure. Each bale weighs 227kg.
Samples are taken from each bale for classing and the bales are wrapped in stretchy white cotton fabric to protect the lint.
They are now ready for transport to one of the ports for shipping into overseas markets