Plant · P-971

Cotton Pima

Gossypium barbadense

Pima cotton is grown for its extra-long-staple fibre, the strong, fine fiber spun into high-count yarns for fine textiles and worked into rope, carpet and surgical dressing. The seed presses into a cooking oil and grinds into flour, and crushed seed meal feeds cattle, but every food and feed use runs into gossypol - a natural toxin concentrated in this cotton more than most - so seed for people or for pigs and poultry needs a low-gossypol variety or dehulling first. It is a frost-tender tropical shrub that needs a long, hot, dry season to open its bolls, which is why it is grown as an irrigated one-season crop wherever winters freeze rather than as the small perennial tree it becomes in the frost-free tropics.