Sticky cotton occurs when late season insect infestations cause honeydew to deposit on the lint. Bioremediation offers a possible method of removing this contamination. The purpose of this research was to examine the ability of plant associated yeast to digest the sugars found in aphid and whitefly honeydew and to evaluate CO₂ flux as a means of monitoring microbial activity on cotton lint. When assessed across all 250 strains with in vitro testing, sucrose supported the highest average rate of growth followed closely by glucose and fructose, then melezitose and trehalose. When ranked by the maximum observed growth rate, fructose and glucose supported the highest rate followed closely by melezitose and sucrose with the maximum rate observed on trehalose being considerably lower. These results indicate that suitable strains of yeast could readily be selected from local phyllosphere yeast populations. A CO₂ flux measuring system consisting of a sample chamber, infrared analyzer, and gas handling circuits was evaluated as a technique to measure microbial activity on cotton lint. The system could readily detect the release of CO₂ through respiration of S. cerevisiae or a wild phyllosphere yeast growing on sucrose treated lint. Tests with seed cotton responded similar to tests with ginned cotton, indicating that seed respiration would not interfere with measurements of microbial respiration.