How Does The Cotton Gin Work

Slaying the Dragon

ANNE KRUGER, PRESENTER: One thing for sure, the price spike for cotton this season has certainly helped buoy spirits in flood-affected growing areas of Queensland.

In the southern inland town of St George some farmers are still grappling with the aftermath, but those floodwaters this year and another deluge last March have brought a record harvest.

Reporter Kirrin McKechnie spent a week in St George at the height of the January floods. She returned for Landline and found that for this town, at least, the floods haven't been all bad news.

(Inundated vineyards)

DAVID BLACKET, GRAPE GROWER: This has been the summer from hell. We had two peaks in January. The biggest peak this year was about 13.2 metres and then the next peak occurred about two weeks later, which was about 12.5 metres.

The peak early on was slightly less than the March peak last year but much more damaging this year. It was right in the middle of harvest and it went for much longer. So the floods kept going for most of January so it was far more disruptive on the business and the tourist trade.

And because it was the middle of harvest, it caused me a lot of grey hairs.

KIRRIN MCKECHNIE, REPORTER: Grey hairs are perhaps the least of David Blacket's worries. The St George grape grower is facing months of recovery work after the January floods hit his harvest hard.

DAVID BLACKET: We lost about half our crop as a result of the rain and the flooding, particularly with the table grapes. And the wine grapes, we lost about half the crop as well, just through straight flood loss.

So the losses were fairly extensive and that resulted in fairly substantial cash flow losses for the business.

KIRRIN MCKECHNIE: Crops worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were washed away. But rather than give in and watch the flood do its worst, David Blackett launched an aggressive bid to harvest as much of his crop as possible.

With the rising Balonne River turning his farm into an island, he ferried the pickers to the vines each morning before the remaining crop went under.

So David, how far would the flood waters have got here?

DAVID BLACKET: The first peak was right over the top and the second peak, you can just see up there. So yeah, we would have been two metres of water through here.

KIRRIN MCKECHNIE: And what sort of damage has it done to these vines?

seniors walking across america: DAY 123: LAMESA - LUBBOCK, TEXAS

The whole process is very complex. My walk-thru was very detailed and I tried to take appropriate photographs. I did not, however, do a very good job...30 minutes to learn an entire manufacturing process is a bit much...I did, however, thoroughly enjoy my tour. Chris Rhodes, the Manager, was my guide, and was most accommodating and patient with me and my stupid questions. The difference is based upon how much water the cotton plants receive during the growing season. The area of West Texas where I am now walking has very little water. Many fields receive NO WATER AT ALL. If it does not rain, the plant will NOT grow and there is NO crop. In that event, the farmer has "some" protection, receiving support from the US Government and "Insurance" if they purchased it. Three large rooms are used in the UNITED GIN COMPANY facility. It all looks very confusing, as most unfamiliar things usually are. But, the cleaned and dried cotton does eventually reach the Ginning Station for Seed Removal...then on to the final station of bundling / baling...strange as it seems, water is added just prior to baling...this to give it a bit of weight and humidity to allow the strands to better bale. The primary method of separating the cotton strands from unwanted items such a stick, leaves, sand, & even metal (one station has magnets to remove any metal ) is to use large rollers - or Cylinders with hundreds of tiny sharp teeth. As the cotton reached each "knife cylinder" - and the entire system has many stations using knife cylinders, the cotton is grabbed by the knives on the counter-clockwise rotating cylinder and held firmly as the knives - cotton and all - slip between grooves just large enough for the knives to pass, dragging the cotton along behind. The unwanted sticks, etc, are too large to fit through the grooves, and are thrown off to fall into a bin in the bottom of that particular station. The cotton is then "removed" from the Knife cylinder by a second roller with stiff short brushes. This cylinder is also rotating counter clockwise close to the spinning knives,..but just a bit faster than the knife cylinder. This allows the brushes to "sweep" the cotton off the sharp knives, allowing the ever-present air flow to move the cotton on to the next station. Chris is standing in front of one of four (4) "Ginning" machines. This is where the final processing step is completed; i.e., removal of the seed from each cotton strand.

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