Cotton stickiness, due primarily to Bemisia, has become a limiting factor in cotton production in many countries, and may presently be considered by the cotton industry as the most serious factor affecting cotton quality. Enzyme-based technologies for ameliorating lint stickiness at either the pre-harvest or post-harvest stage are being developed. To most efficiently deploy these systems it will be necessary to determine whether a field is in need of remedial treatment for stickiness. Fairly standardized laboratory techniques (e.g. thermodetector) are available for indexing the stickiness of lint, but there is no standard methodology for collecting samples from the fields. Research was conducted in 1995-1997 in central AZ and Imperial Valley, CA to examine the distribution of sticky cotton lint, optimize the sample unit size, and determine the number of samples needed for the precise estimation of lint stickiness.