Cost involved in handling seed cotton with trailers and module systems with and without pallets were studied for a Mississippi gin environment using 1985 equipment and labor cost.

In Mississippi a relatively high ginning capacity results in rapid turnaround of trailers (12-18 trips/year) making handling seed cotton with trailers very economical for Mississippi growers ($5.62 to $7.64 per bale for 10' wide x 40' long 12 bale trailers).

Costs of forming the modules (100 modules/ year) were found to be $4.55 per bale without pallets. With pallets, additional labor and time of operation to build a module increased variable cost and thus per bale cost of forming modules to $5.13 per bale. Pallet costs were found to be $5.17 per bale and tarp costs $2.55 per bale, assuming 1.5 uses of pallets and tarps per year.

Transportation costs of modules were determined for: self-loading trucks, fifth-wheel truck tractor and self-loading trailer, farm tractor drawn self-loading trailer and a farm tractor drawn pallet trailer.

With maximum utilization of module building and handling equipment, costs of handling seed cotton with modules are competitive with trailers.