Cotton, Cotton, Cotton

I adventured to Pleasant Hill, SC again and got the opportunity to see the cotton modules! Cotton is my favorite row crop, so this was quite exciting. Dr. Cribb talked to me about the cotton industry and walked me through how they pack the cotton into the modules. The machinery that packs the cotton is very similar to a combine. The machinery is called a "module builder." Use the link below to watch a video of a module builder in action if you are interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbp7tvDpaeQ
I also learned about the anatomy of cotton and how to pick it, which is the old-fashioned way. To pick it, you have to take the cotton out of the cotton boll and pick the seeds out of it. This is what they had to do before Eli Whitney's cotton gin was invented. Here is a picture of cotton in the cotton boll.

Lastly, I learned about the business and marketing behind cotton farming. Here are a few facts for you.

-Each cotton module weighs about 30,000 lbs., the equivalent to 15 tons

-Once cotton goes through the cotton gin, it will be about 7500-8500 lbs. of marketable cotton. The farmer can receive about $7500-8500 for this amount of cotton

-Farmers can also sell the cotton seeds for about $1500

Here are some photos of me with the cotton module! As you can see in the both images, there is a lot of cotton left of the ground. This is because the cotton module builder is quite ineffective. It is more cost efficient for farmers to use the cotton module builder than to hire field hands, so for this reason most farmers chose to use this machinery despite its inability to pick up all of the cotton on the field.