Concerns that greater cotton dust potential may be associated with increased cotton stickiness prompted a survey to determine if this would be a potential problem in the processing of sticky cotton. A large collection of cottons with varying levels of stickiness was assayed for cotton dust potential and compared. The results suggest a small increase of cotton dust potential is associated with stickiness when using the percentage of reducing sugars and Sticky Cotton Thermodetector stickiness ratings; however, stickiness was not correlated with the level of dust, and level of dust was not increased with greater minicard stickiness ratings. This suggested that stickiness did not influence the level of dust potential, and from a practical viewpoint, no additional adjustments to control cotton dust are necessary during the processing of sticky cottons.
