Seedcoat fragments (SCFS) are defined as a portion of cottonseed, usually black or dark brown in color, broken from a mature or immature seed, and to which fiber and linters may or may not be attached. SCFs are one of the contaminants often reported by spinning mills as objectionable. Then SCFs occur in yarn, they are similar in size to neps and present some of the same quality problems plus a few additional ones. One of these problems is that the fiber tufts appear in dyed yarn or cloth as undesirable specks that are either lighter or occasionally darker than their background. SCFs are responsible for some of the "ends down" in spinning of yarn.

Research has shown that an increased feed rate of seed cotton into the gin stand increases seed damage, which will increase SCFs in ginned lint. Research results indicate that two saw-type lint cleaners remove 38%, by weight, of the SCFs but breaks the remaining SCFs into smaller fragments. Processing through more than two saw-type lint cleaners creates even smaller fragments. SCFs can make up as much as 27% of the total number of small imperfections present in yarns. Occurrence and size of SCFs are directly influenced by any mechanical processing of cotton from picking to spinning.