Plant-parasitic nematodes annually reduce cotton yields by $413 million. It is estimated that the reniform nematode alone annually costs each producer from 100 to 500 lbs. of lint per acre or $55 to $275 per acre – a total Beltwide yield loss of $177 million.

A reniform nematode management web page will be developed in cooperation with the nematologists in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Producers will have access to the page, which will integrate all management options into a total nematode management package. That includes information on cultural practices, tolerant varieties, rotations with non-host crops and chemical management.

NCC moved its educational materials from its web site to the Cotton Counts web site to facilitate download by educators and others.

The NCC’s web site, www.cotton.org, is a cost-effective method of communicating and helping the organization handle increased information demands. The NCC’s World Wide Web Project Team continues to guide the site’s development as a central online information source about the U.S. cotton industry.

Among recent improvements and additions to the site: online posting of the NCC and Cotton Foundation annual reports and archiving of previous reports; implementation of the first phase of the NCC Intranet; publication of several technical documents such as Specifications for Permanent Bale Identification Bale Tags; and redesigning and moving all educational materials to the Cotton Counts web site for download by educators and others.

Information flow was enhanced with such online form additions as the Beltwide Cotton Conferences call for papers and The Cotton Foundation project proposals.

The quarterly, online Journal of Cotton Science (JCS), available at http://journal.cotton.org, offers ready access to multidisciplinary cotton research in areas ranging from genetics to economics. Offering scientists a rapid outlet for their findings, JCS has received and placed into peer review nearly 300 manuscripts. Published manuscripts contain an interpretive summary that explains the research’s value in layman’s terms.

JCS, which is copyrighted, is published as Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files for optimum versatility and ease of publication. Now in its eighth year, JCS was the first all-electronic journal to be indexed in AGRICOLA, the database of the National Agricultural Library.

NCC staff is continually seeking and evaluating opportunities to enhance the U.S. cotton industry’s ability to operate in today’s regulatory environment.

Progress has been made, for example, toward: 1) amending fire and building codes that impact cotton bale storage; 2) obtaining data important to flammability standards being developed for mattresses/filled bed products and upholstered furniture, 3) compiling statistics helpful to retaining cotton beneficial amendments to the Children's Sleepwear Flammability Standard; 4) gathering information for maintaining reasonable air emission regulations for cottonseed oil mills and avoiding potentially negative rules governing oilseed processing and oil regulations; and 5) acquiring test results on particulate matter (PM) emissions from cotton gins to help avoid unworkable cotton dust regulations.