Earliness of maturity is essential to the adaptation of cotton cultivars to Tennessee. Earlier research suggested that long-term no-tillage (NT) increases earliness of maturity at harvest, but that varieties differ in their earliness responses to tillage practices. Objectives of this research were to measure earliness of newer commercial cultivars in 30-inch rows using NT and conventional tillage (CT), and to monitor plant growth responses in cultivars of contrasting maturity. It was hypothesized that varietal differences in earliness at harvest may be related to morphological earliness traits or to cutout. Twenty-four commercial cultivars were grown with CT and NT in a Vicksburg silt loam at the Milan Experiment Station in 1996 and 1997. The two tillage systems were main plot treatments, and varieties were subplot treatments in a RCB split-plot arrangement. Earliness traits were monitored in six of the entries in both tillage systems at early bloom, late bloom, and late season. Relatively early maturity was represented by the cultivars Deltapine 20, Stoneville 132, and Sure-Grow 125. Slightly later maturity was represented by Deltapine 51, Stoneville 474, and Sure-Grow 501. Seedling vigor and lint yield data from two harvests were collected in both tillage systems each year.