Most research on the seedling disease complex of cotton examines the role of these diseases in reducing plant stands. An experiment designed to examine the importance of chronically diseased plants that survived seedling infection on cotton development and yield was planted at two locations in Arkansas in 1992. The Clarkedale site was planted on 29 April 1992 and the Hope site on 8 May 1992. Treatments included; 1) a nontreated control, 2) fumigation (methyl bromide + chloropicrin), 3) seed (Apron + Vitavax-PCNB) plus infurrow (Ridomil PC) fungicides, 4) Temik, and 5) Temik plus fumigation. Plots within each replication were thinned to the same plant population and plant distribution as the nontreated control. The fumigation treatments were used to examine plant growth and development where soilborne pathogen populations were suppressed. The fungicide treatment examined the effectiveness of current treatments in reducing chronic seedling disease. Temik treatments examined the role of early season thrips damage on seedling vigor. The fumigation treatment increased the height, number of nodes, and root weight of seedlings compared to the nontreated control at Clarkedale. very poor seedling growth in the fumigation treatment at Hope indicated phytotoxicity from residual fumigant. Temik treatments increased seedling height over other treatments at Clarkedale and seedling height and root weight at Hope. Fumigation did not significantly influence isolation frequency of pathogens from seedlings at Clarkedale, but isolation frequency of Rhizoctonia solani was reduced by fumigation at Hope. Fumigation increased yield 7.6% at the Clarkedale location (significant at P=0.10). The Temik treatments also had significantly greater yields than the nontreated control at Clarkedale. Seed cotton yield was negatively correlated with the plant skip index (Chambers, 1986), r=-O.72, and positively correlated with plant stand, r=0.76, at Clarkedale; plant stands in the replications ranged from 2.0 to 4.8/m. The use of these treatments over numerous environments and peat pressures should quantify the importance of chronic seedling disease on cotton development and yield.