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Better Farming Ontario Featured Articles

Better Farming Ontario magazine is published 11 times per year. After each edition is published, we share featured articles online.


Immature cotton finds a market

Monday, August 5, 2013

In the southern United States, big machines move in and harvest all of the cotton, whether it is ripe or not. A use for the immature bolls has been elusive, at least until now.

According to a report published in Industrial & Engineering Chemical Research, a team of scientists from Texas Tech University found that immature cotton soaks up 36 times its weight in oil spilled into the sea after a tanker or oil rig accident. This is important because immature cotton, otherwise a waste product of a large agricultural sector, is cheap. By comparison, mature cotton soaks up only 31 times its weight in spilled oil, and synthetic products only 15 to 20 times their weight.

Using microscopes to perform an examination, the scientists found that immature cotton contains more fibres that are finer. Farmers should be pleased to have a market at all for their otherwise waste product. BF

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