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Cotton running through the ginning machine |
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The cotton fibers pass through a final
cleaning machine.
This one also helps align the fibers. The
hot
air is then separated from the fibers, which fall down the chutes to
the
baling area. |
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The bale press starts out as a 30-foot-deep
steel-lined
box in the floor. Cleaned cotton fibers fill the box and are then
compressed by 5000 lbs. of pressure into a cotton bale. |
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The next machine wraps each 500 lb. bale in
six plastic
straps. Each original module produces about 15 bales and, in
2006, each bale will sell for $250 to $260.
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The bale moves up the conveyor and through a
metal sheath
that wraps it in a plastic bag. |
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A warehouse full of the finished product,
ready to be
sent to textile mills to be spun into thread and woven into
cloth. One acre will produce 2-3 bales of fiber.
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The cleaned seeds, which are as useful as the
fibers,
are moved by air-pipe to another warehouse. |
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The seeds are sold to dairies for cattle
feed, general feedlots, and to
oil mills for multipurpose cottonseed oil. Each 500 lb bale of
cotton fiber represents about 750 lbs of seed, which can be sold (2006)
for about $150 per ton.
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Some of the seeds will create the next
generation of
cotton! (this was true in 1998 but the seeds now represent a
genetically modified product that is owned by the producer (mostly
Monsanto), i.e.,
planting them represents a criminal activity.
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| Created 1998/07/17 |
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Last Updated 2007/09/07 (HDW)
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