Cotton Genomics and Genetics 2025, Vol.16, No.2, 95-106 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/cgg 97 harvesting, such as mud, plant fragments, etc. adhering to the cotton seeds, the vibration during transportation will cause these impurities to be further embedded in the fiber, increasing the difficulty of subsequent cleaning. Improper transportation and loading methods may also compact the cotton pile and cause mechanical damage to the fiber. In order to reduce the adverse effects of transportation on quality, cotton bags or molded packaging with good air permeability should be used, and the transportation tools should be kept clean and dry to prevent rain and secondary pollution. In addition, while the new seed cotton mold technology improves transportation efficiency, it should be covered with waterproof tarpaulins to avoid moisture in open-air storage. 2.3 Storage conditions The storage environment of seed cotton and lint cotton is crucial to maintaining quality. Appropriate storage should control temperature and humidity and prevent insect and mildew damage. Excessive moisture content is the main cause of quality deterioration during storage. If the storage environment is poorly ventilated and the humidity is high, the cotton pile will release heat due to microbial activity, causing the "heat cotton" phenomenon, resulting in reduced fiber strength and spinnability (Salimov et al., 2022). A study on factors affecting cotton storage pointed out that high moisture and excessive impurities are the key factors that lead to the decline of fiber and seed quality during storage (Van Der Sluijs and Delhom, 2016). Therefore, the moisture content of seed cotton should be reduced to a safe range (generally not higher than 10% to 12%) before storage, and as much weeds as possible should be removed. The warehouse should be kept dry and ventilated, and the bottom of the stack should be raised to prevent ground moisture from invading. If long-term storage is required, regular stacking inspections can be considered to monitor the temperature and humidity of the cotton bales. Once signs of condensation and heating are found, ventilation and cooling should be carried out in time. Only by strictly controlling the adverse factors in each link after harvest can the original quality of cotton be maintained to the greatest extent. 3 Post-Harvest Processing Technology 3.1 Innovation in cotton ginning process In response to the problems of high impurities and high moisture content in cotton after harvest, modern cotton processing technology is constantly innovating to improve processing efficiency while protecting fiber quality. Ginning is a key process to separate seed cotton into lint and cotton seeds, and its process level directly affects fiber length and purity. Traditional sawtooth gins are highly efficient, but have a certain cutting effect on the fiber; while roller gins are gentler on the fiber but have a slow processing speed. Technological innovations in recent years have been committed to achieving a balance between the two (Armijo et al., 2017). Jean Luc Chanselme, partner and technical director of Cotimes do Brasil and an expert in cotton ginning engineering and technology, said, "The art of ginning lies in achieving the best balance between positive effects and negative effects, and producing lint of target quality at the lowest cost." To this end, the industry has continuously improved mechanical structure and process parameters. For example, in order to adapt to the situation where machine-picked cotton has more impurities, the new cotton ginning equipment has added pre-cleaning and multi-sawtooth combination design to improve the impurity removal ability while minimizing fiber damage. Researchers in the United States and China are developing automatic foreign body removal devices based on machine vision and mechanical sorting, which can remove foreign fibers such as plastic film in real time during seed cotton feeding and ginning (Zhao et al., 2018). In Xinjiang, many ginning mills have introduced high-capacity ginning production lines and automated control systems to achieve continuous and uniform feeding and process parameter optimization, which not only ensures efficient impurity removal of machine-picked seed cotton, but also reduces fiber breakage and curling. In order to ensure that cotton of different varieties and qualities are used in their proper places, some local standards require enterprises to process cotton according to its variety, category and grade, and establish a ginning quality traceability system. This not only maintains the stability of fiber quality, but also provides a basis for subsequent quality management and responsibility traceability. 3.2 Fiber grading and sorting The grading of cotton fiber quality is a bridge connecting production and textile utilization. Traditional grading relies on artificial sensory experience, which is highly subjective and lacks consistency. In recent years, the instrumentation and digitization of fiber testing have significantly improved the objective accuracy of grading.
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