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Stickiness in cotton
N.Balasubramanian1

Retd Jt Director (BTRA) and Consultant

ABSTRACT

1. Stickiness in cotton is a major problem affecting

productivity, defects, quality and maintenance costs .
Stickiness can come from secretions from insects or plant
based sugars. Multiple picking. application of potassium
based fertilisers, spraying of insecticides and covering the
field with UV resistant sheets will help during cultivation.
Perkins test ,modified Perkins test, Benedicts solution test,
calorimetric test, HPLC liquid Chromatography and Near
Infra red spectroscopy are some tests commonly used to
estimate sugar level and stickiness. Mini card, Sticky Cotton
Termodetector, H2SD Thermodetector and Fibre Contamination
Tester are some other instrument tests used to detect level of
stickiness. Time taken for roller lapping is another useful test
for estimating stickiness. Low humidity in processing, mixing
a small % of sticky cotton with normal cotton, storage of
cotton under humid conditions, spraying certain chemicals
and microbial culture will give some relief from stickiness. Frequency
of application of antilap solution to cots, acid treatment, Berkolisation
and buffing has to be increased with sticky cottons

Stickiness in cotton is one of the major trouble shooting problems in the mills
and ginning units. Stickiness leads to choke ups in ginning and loss in
production is up to 10-15%. Stickiness results in web falling in carding, cylinder
loading. scraper blade accumulations, partial or complete roller lapping at

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draw frame. speed frame and ring frame leading to considerable loss in
production, uneven quality and rejections. It also results in increased
maintenance by way of frequent cot buffing, application of antilap solution,
acid treatment, berkolisation and cot replacement. Increased idle spindles
leading to lower production is also encountered.

There are several factors contributing to stickiness. Major ones are

1. Honey dew contamination

2. High sugar content from plant nectaries
3. Low Maturity
4. High Wax content
5. Oily contaminants
Honey dew contamination
Honey dew contamination comes from sugar containing sap secreted by
insects like aphid and white fly during growth. Secreted material finds its way
to boll. However Bourley1 opined that sugar associated with stickiness is
melicitose and even a field free from aphid and white fly can produce sticky
cottons.Miller2 et al; found that type of sugar also affects degree of stickiness.
Sucrose, melezitose and trehalulose cause more stickiness than turanose,
palatinose, and sucrose. Melezitose, raffinose, glucose or fructose
contamination. Fibre contaminated with trehalulose is stickier than fibre with an
equivalent amount of melezitose. Mixture of sugars which occur in honey dew
is more stickier than single sugars. Localised concentrated sugars as in honey
dew cause more stickiness than evenly dispersed sugars3. Gamble4 found
concentrations of melezitose and trehalulose on the surface of the cotton
infected with honeydew decrease exponentially as a result of thermo chemical
reactions. The concentration of trehaluose on cotton surface can be reduced
substantially by controlled heat and time. . Sampling is very important in
estimating contamination. Large within sampling variation is found as
contamination by insect is in localised portion.
Preventive measures in cultivation
 Honey dew contamination is more in frost free conditions with lot of sunshine
warm temperature and low humidity. Reducing insect production problem is
one of those helpful to prevent contamination. Limiting cotton cultivation to
single fruit cycle, harvesting on time and destruction of crops infested with
honey dew are some useful measures. Application of selective insecticides may
also help to reduce honey dew but there is risk of insecticides becoming
resistant to such insecticides on frequent application5. Use of mature cotton
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seeds will reduce sugar. Use of boll opening chemicals will help if immature
bolls are high in number.. Rainfall will help to wash out the sugars. Spraying
enzymes on the plant will reduce sugar as microorganisms eat up sugar.
Overhead and in- canopy irrigation have been tried at some places to reduce
sugar. Covering cultivation area with film with ultra violet radiation filters
reduces contamination with insects like white fly6.
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Bushiness large leaf area jncrease stickiness. Optimum planting density,
irrigation, open canopy, optimum fertilisers will also help.

Pest growth is more rapid under indoor greenhouse conditions than outdoor 7.
Integrated pest management is recommended to control pests. Screening of
input material helps to prevent ingress of pests from outside to green house.
Use of UV protection sheets to cover green house reduces insects. Heavy
applications of nitrogen surpluses in fertiliser should be avoided. Application
of potassium at recommended levelsis useful to reduce pests. Single picking
allows more time for insects to sit on bolls and leaves and so results in more
stickiness. Multiple picking should be done to reduce infection levels.

Testing for Honey dew

2. Potassium ferricyanide test also known as Perkins test is one of the
common methods originally proposed for determining sugar content.
Perkins test determines the amount of reducing material in the water
extract of cotton by comparing the reducing ability of these extracts
with that of glucose used as standard. About .5gms of purified cotton
is immersed in distilled water with addition of sufficient potassium
ferricyanide. The solution is boiled for 3min and colour of solution
assessed from which presence of reducing sugars is estimated. This
method can be used primarily for screening cottons having sticky
sugars and those free from it. 0.2% sugar is considered non sticky
>0.3% is regarded as highly sticky. But it is not efficient to detect
finer differences in sticky sugars in cotton. It is also insensitive to
sucrose and melezitose which also contribute to stickiness as this test
determines only reducing sugars and not non reducing sugars. The
latter also contribute to stickiness. Brushwood8 suggested that some of
the non reducing sugars can be converted to reducing sugars by adding
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a mild 0.2% M sulphuric acid before potassium ferricyanide test.

Correlation between sugar content by this test and sticky cotton
thermo detector test improved by 20% in the case cottons infested
with aphid honey dew.

3. Benedicts test

One gm of opened cotton is wetted with 40 l of boiled water in a test

tube. After heating for 15 min 1 milli litre of Benedicts solution ( made
up of 100 g of anhydrous sodium carbonate, 173 g of sodium citrate and
17.3 g of copper(II) sulphate pentahydrate.) is added to 15 millilitres of
this solution. The colour taken by the solution indicates extent of honey
dew.

Table 1

Extent of Nil Little Medium Heavy

Honey Dew
Colour Blue Green Yellow Orange/Red

Table 1 gives the colour taken by the solution with different levels of
contamination
4. Ultra violet Test

Honey dew contaminated cotton gives reddish

fluorescence of low intensity when examined under
ultraviolet light. The test is not conclusive as
similar fluresence by cotton seed hulls, leaf
particles and insects is seen in cotton.
5. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPCL)
The sugar is extracted from cotton by water. Through the use of an eluant
the sugar is separated on the basis of molecular weight and steric
arrangement. The individual sugars are indicated by HPCL profile. The
main advantage of this method is it can measure both reducing and non
reducing sugars and also source of contamination (white fly or aphid or
plant) .The test however is time consuming, expensive and does not
provide information on distribution of infecting sugar deposits on cotton.
Refined gas chromatography test for the water-surfactant soluble
components and or natural contaminants on cotton have been developed9.
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This makes test more quantitative..The studies with this method showed
that stickiness is directly related to reducing sugar concentration. Field
weathering and bacterial and fungal attack lower malic acid content and
result in significant amount of arabitol and mannitol..

6. High resolution Near Infra red Spectroscopy

High resolution NR Infrared spectroscopy can be used to determine

the intensity of stickiness. About 15 gm of cotton is placeda and

pressure applied on it, Spectra are taken. Tests are taken 3-4 times
rearranging samples and average spectra taken. Barton et al found 4
cm-1 resolution gives best results for stickiness.. A large number of
samples have to be tested to get accurate results.

A model has been developed which distinguishes cottons by Barton10-

et al; for checking stickiness intensity.

Ghosh and Roy11 developed a 4 wavelength regression model with Near

Infra spectroscopy for correlating the results with sugar content

 Abidi and Hequet12 found a good correlation between FTIR spectra of

rotor yarn defects from cottons contaminated with whitefly honey dew
and the spectra of white fly contaminated cotton. However no such
correlation is found in the case aphid contaminated honeydew cotton.
Water absorption of trehalulose sugar has a marginal effect on on the
intensities of vibration mode of trehalulose. The results indicate that
amongst sugars trehalulose sugar is the main cause for yarn defects..

7. Sticky Cotton Termodetector

This is a hand held device developed by CIRAD for assessing
stickiness in cotton by thermodetection. Heat and pressure applied on
cotton web placed between aluminium foils and sticky points are
counted. The results are subjective.
8. CIRAD has developed an improved machine capable of measuring
stickiness far more rapidly than the SCT thermodetector,
recommended by the international textile manufacturers or ITMF.
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This is the H2SD (high speed stickiness detector, manufactured in

partnership with SYDEL SA, Montpellier (France).
A sample of cotton is opened by rotor to form a sheet. The sheet is
them pressed by 2 aluminium foils successfully at four places at a
temperature of 540 Centigrade in one of the plates. and number of
sticky points is determined by Image analyser. 4 samples are tested
and average taken. The test is rapid and takes only 30 sec. Operator
involvement is limited to preparing the wad of cotton. The plates are
automatically cleaned after each sample. Time taken for a sample is
only 30 sec. correlation found between SCT and hot press method13 is
not good--. However some cottons give stickiness at elevated
temperature but have no stickiness at 270 C leading to false results.
Sticky deposits from aluminium foil trehalulose is the main cause for
stickiness with cottons contaminated with white fly. Unidentified
compounds are responsible for stickiness in cottons contaminated with
aphid. In general correlation between thermodevices like SCT,
Fixotest, iron, hot press are not good13.

. Hequet and Abidi14 have developed a method where cotton is tested at 2

temp viz; 240 and 540 C. Trehalulose deposits are determined at lower
temp and non trehalulose-rich honeydew droplets and physiological
sugars are determined at higher temp

Mini Card test

The number of sticky points in the stainless steel calendar roller or delivery
roller as web passes through them in a mini card (such as one used in Shirley
Miniature Plant) is used to estimate stickiness. Other factors taken into
consideration while grading cotton for stickiness are time taken for stickiness,
number of disturbances in passage of web and intensity of stickiness. Grading is
done as no stickiness, light stickiness, moderate stickiness and high stickiness.
The processing is done at 55% RH. Water content has a strong positive effect
on stickiness while temperature has a negative effect. The effect of relative
humidity on stickiness is greater with cottons having high sticking tendency15.
This is a highly subjective method, accuracy affected by frequency of cleaning
of calendar rollers and can be used only for broadly screening cottons as sticky
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and non sticky. Cottons with plant sugar evenly distributed in the cotton may
not produce sticky points in this test. Further the test is slow and its
reproducibility is not good.

Fibre Contamination Tester (FCT)

Web prepared from Minicard is passed through a pair of crush rollers. The crush
rollers are getting heated because of brushes rubbing against them and this
causes honeydew to stick. Sticky points are counted by laser beam and
computer software. Limitation of this method is it gets contaminated soon and
requires frequent cleaning

Out of the various test methods FCT and H2SD have potential for estimating
stickiness with reasonable accuracy, if adequate number of samples are tested.
Within sample variability is higher and operational efficiency is lower with
FCT.
International Committee on cotton testing methods has taken an imitative to
standardise test method for testing cotton stickiness. The first step is to create a
method for preparing a homogenous samples of sticky cottons. The second step
is to conduct stickiness tests on this cotton with various mechanical instruments
in different laboratories...The third step is to determine the agreement between
results on the same instrument by different laboratories. Also the correlation
between different instruments will be studied. Based on this the instrument that
gives most reproducible results will be found.

Colorimetric method

Shams-Nateri and Mohajerani16 proposed a method for estimating

honey dew. It consists of caramelising cotton by heating which
changes the colour of honey dew from pale/colourless to yellow and
brown. The yellow index of cotton by Nickerson Hunter colorimeter
is used to quantify honeydew. The cotton is divided into 2 parts. One
part is washed to remove honey dew and heated to 1500 in Owen. The
second part is not washed but heated to 1500 .Yellow index of both
samples were determined from which stickiness index was estimated.
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9. Infra Red based Moisture tester

Infra Red based moisture tester was developed at US Cotton
Ginning Laboratory at Stoneville, Mississippi17. It consists of Infra red
based moisture tester, resistance based moisture tester, compression
system and a computer with special soft ware. The infra red based
moisture measures insect sugar and normal sugar while resistance based
moisture tester is only slightly affected by insect sugars. The system
predicts accurately stickiness in 75% cases and takes only 5 seconds. The
system can also be used online to measure stickiness as cotton is being
processed. If the difference between infrared based moisture and
resistance based moisture is 0.8% or more cotton is usually sticky. .If the
difference between oven based moisture and infrared based moisture is
0.6% and if the difference between infrared based moisture and resistance
based moisture is 0.8% or more then the cotton is not sticky though it
contains high sugar content.

Accelerated Roller lapping test

Roller lapping on cots in ring frame is highly correlated with
stickiness in cotton. So an accelerated roller lapping test can be
used to predict stickiness levels. The test is best carried out on
a miniature spinning plant like Shirley. Only about 50 to 100gms of
cotton are required and the test takes about 2-3 hours. The end
arebroken and time taken for roller lapping to occur is noted for each
spindle. The test is repeated 10 times nd average time taken for roller
lapping to occur is estimated. Time taken for roller lapping is highly
correlated with sticking tendency and the test can be used to identify
stickiness level in cotton at the time of purchase. The test has the merit
that t simulates conditions actually present in mills.

Gamble18 examined if thermochemical production of volatile compounds

produced by heating contaminated cottons can be used to assess
stickiness. Heating of contaminated cotton led to degradation and
produced 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furaldehyde (HMF) which is volatile.
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HMF was quantified by gas chromatography. Level of HMF production

was found to be correlated with stickiness.

Ht Immaturity
Immature fibres contain a good amount of sugars like glucose, fructose,
sucrose and other sugars. These are plant based sugars. Mature cottons
are fully dried and contain only traces of sugar. Immature cottons contain
a good amount of sugar some of which is sticky
Crushed seeds and fragments.
Crushed seeds and seed fragments ooze oil in ginning and this leads to
stickiness. Immature and small seed get caught between knife and roller
or ribs in saws result in seed fragments, Improper gin settings and worn
out knife and saw also result in seed coat fragments Ginning should be
improved to minimise seed coat fragments.
Eltahir19 et al; employed Taguchi method for analysing the impact of
mixing sticky cotton with non stcky cotton. They found optimum amount
of sticky cottons to be mixed with non sticky cotton is 25%. CV% of
roving and quality of yarn are adversely affected by stickiness of cotton.

Rotor yarn quality is not much affected by stickiness in cotton20.

This is in contradiction with te results of Abidi and Hequet who
found rotor yarn defects are caused by sugar from white fly.

Oily contaminants

Contaminants like oil grease, stamp colour and tar among the
contaminants found in cotton bale that result in stickiness. Grease
and oil come from harvesting machinery and stamp colour from
bale stamping

Measures to overcome processing problems with sticky cottons

Microbial activity is helpful in consuming the sugars. Use of ammonium
compounds at a certain moisture to the cotton containing sugars led to
marked reduction in stickiness of cotton21 .Standard bale of cotton was
opened and sprayed with 0.5 to1% of Ammonium hydroxide or 1 to 2%
Ammonium nitrite and water was sprayed to obtain a moisture content of
10%. The bale was repacked and stored for 120 days. Sugar content was
found to reduce from .39 to .09% with ammonium hydroxide and from
.68 to .1% with Ammonium nitrite.
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Afzal22 has discussed in detail the causes of stickiness and

remedial measures. Multiple pickings reduce the time for insects
to enter the plant and help reduce stickiness.
. Several additives for spraying on cotton to reduce stickiness are given
by Hector and Hodkinson23

Use of chemical additives prior to ginning helps to reduce sugar

by forming a coating over the fibres. Blending sticky cottons of
small amounts with normal cotton may mitigate the problem to some
extent. Hequet. Abidi,\and Ethridge24 mixed sticky and non sticky
cottons in various proportions and spun them into yarn. At low levels of
contamination stickiness does not affect end breakages in spinning.
Cottons with less than 12 H2SD spots do not have much influence on end
breakages in ring and rotor spinning. Even small amounts of trehalulose
contaminate the equipment in course of time. Cumulative negative impact
is felt as a result on quality and productivity.

Perkins25 found that tandem carding helps to reduce stickiness.

Application of hydrocarbon with surfactant at the opening stage reduces
stickiness problems at various stages of spinning. Spraying sticky cottons
with Beijerinckia mobilis, a free living nitrogen-fixing bacterium reduces
stickiness. CIRCOT26 suggest spraying of microbial culture recovered
from lint reduces stickiness without affecting strength. Other advantage
claimed is that itt can be applied to seed cotton prior to ginning. Storage
of new crop for about 3-6 months will also reduce stickiness

Studies with cotton having high moisture content showed that increase
of moisture up to 15% reduces stickiness without affecting quality27.
Both sugar content and stickiness are reduced with water up to 30 %
with urea or ammonia. This is contradictory to the findings of Perkins
and others that lower humidity in processing helps to reduce stickiness.

Chueng28 et al analysed trimethylsilyl derivatives of the water-surfactant-

soluble components of cotton fibers by gas chromatography and found
substantial amounts of sucrose and turanose. The sugars come from
honeydew and cause stickiness .
Aspointed by Miller2. Trehalulose turanose palatonmose and sucrose
are very sticky. Melazitose,ruffinose, glucose and fructose are less
sticky. Biological methods to control stickiness should concentrate on
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sticky sugar components and Stickiness Potential of Individual Insect

Honeydew Carbohydrates on Cotton Lint
Roving frame is most affected by stickiness H2SD is most accurate
method for estimating stickiness29
Effect of stickiness is most felt in evenness of roving30. Ring spun
yarn quality is more sensitive to stickiness than rotor yarn quality.
Unevenness and imperfections are most affected by stickiness. Some
measures adopted in mills to keep down rollel lapping are application of
antilap solution, buffing, Acid treatment and Berkoliasatio. While
processing sticky cottons frequency of these operations has to be
increased leading to more maintenance costs.

References

1. J, Bourley, Contribution to the study of sugars in cotton plants (in

French) Cot. Fib. Trop., 1980, 35, 189-208.
2. W.B. Miller, E. Peralta, D. R. Ellis, H. H. Perkins, JR Stickiness
Potential of Individual Insect Honeydew Carbohydrates on Cotton Lint,
Textile Research J,1994, 64, p344
3. D. E. Brushwood, H. H. Perkins, Cotton sugar and stickiness test
methods, Can. Text. J., 110(1993), 54- 62.
4. G. Gamble The thermo chemical degradation of melezitose and
trehalulose as related to cotton stickiness, Textile. Research. J.,
72(2002), p174-
5. E. Hequet, T.J. Henneberry, and R.L. Nichols, Sticky Cotton:
Causes, Effects, and Prevention, United States Department of
Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Technical Bulletin
Number 1915 June 2007

6.M. Shimoda and Ken-ichiro Honda,

Insect reactions to light and its applications to pest management,
Applied Entomology and Zoology November 2013, Volume
48, Issue 4, pp 413–421
7. Ajay K. Sood, Management of insect-pests in protected
environment, http://agropedia.iitk.ac.in/content/management-insect-
pests-protected-environment

10..Donald E. Brushwood, Modification of the Potassium Ferricyanide

Reducing Sugar Test for Sugars from Extracts of Cotton Fiber, The
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Journal of Cotton Science 4:202-209 (2000)

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9 .C.W. Roberts, P.S.R. Cheung, H.H. Perkins, JR Implications of

Monosaccharides in Sticky-Cotton Processing Part II: Effects of
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10. F. E. Barton J. D. Bargeron iii, G. R. Gamble, D. L. Mcalister, and E

Hequet, Analysis of Sticky Cotton by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy,
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11.S. Ghosh & R. B. Roy Quantitative Near-infra-red Analysis of
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 12. N. ABIDI AND E. HEQUETFourier Transform Infrared Analysis

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 13.. W. Frydrych, T. WI CH, J. Andrysiak, A Walawska,
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means of multi-temperature testing, Google Patent

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15 Gutknecht, J. , Fournier, J.Frydrych, R.

Influence of water content and air temperature on cotton stickiness
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16.A. Shams-Nateri1 and M. Mohajerani Evaluation of Cotton Fibers

Stickiness by Colorimetric Method, Prog. Color Colorants Coat.
6(2013), 9-15
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17. W. Stanley Anthony, On line Assessment of Cotton Stickiness,

https://www.icac.org/icac/Projects/CommonFund/Stickiness/final_rep
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Thermochemical Production of Volatile Compounds,, The Journal of
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problem MIAN IFTKHAR AFZAL M, Proceedings of the
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F. Hequet Noureddine Abidi Dean Ethridge,
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