The first critical stage in producing a crop such as cotton involves obtaining an acceptable stand. Failure to obtain an acceptable stand may be due to seedling diseases, poor seedbed preparation, faulty planting methods, packed soil, dry soil, poor quality seed, or cold soil temperatures. In most cases, poor stands of cotton are the result of seedling diseases. The Cotton Disease Loss Committee estimated that seedling diseases accounted for 2.46%, or over 20% of all disease losses during the last five years (Table 1).