Since the mid-1990s, the International Textile Center (ITC) has been engaged in a collaborative research effort aimed at developing reliable measurements for stickiness of cotton fibers, in order to enable efficient management of this contamination problem.

The HPLC is indispensable for identifying the sources of stickiness contamination (plant sugars vs. insect honeydew and the types of insects involved). Nevertheless, the HPLC cannot be a good predictor of stickiness. Apparently the stickiness potential of cotton is not only linked to the percentage of a specific sugar, but to the balance between the various sugars as well. Another likely factor is that moderate amounts of rainfall renders the cotton fiber less sticky by diluting the honeydew deposits on the lint, spreading the sugars over a larger fiber surface without significantly lowering the sugar content.