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Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypiumin the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor percentages of waxes, fats, pectins, and water. Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will increase the dispersal of the seeds.

Successful cultivation of cotton requires a long frost-free period, plenty of sunshine, and a moderate rainfall, usually from 60 to 120 cm (24 to 47 in Soils usually need to be fairly heavy, although the level of nutrients does not need to be exceptional. In general, these conditions are met within the seasonally dry tropics and subtropics in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, but a large proportion of the cotton grown today is cultivated in areas with less rainfall that obtain the water from irrigation. Production of the crop for a given year usually starts soon after harvesting the preceding autumn.

Cotton is naturally a perennial but is grown as an annual to help control pests. Planting time in spring in the Northern hemisphere varies from the beginning of February to the beginning of June. While dryland (non-irrigated) cotton is successfully grown in this region, consistent yields are only produced with heavy reliance on irrigation water drawn from the Ogallala Aquifer. Since cotton is somewhat salt and drought tolerant, this makes it an attractive crop for arid and semiarid regions. As water resources get tighter around the world, economies that rely on it face difficulties and conflict, as well as potential environmental problems. 

Most cotton in the United States, Europe and Australia is harvested mechanically, either by a cotton picker, a machine that removes the cotton from the boll without damaging the cotton plant, or by a cotton stripper, which strips the entire boll off the plant. Cotton strippers are used in regions where it is too windy to grow picker varieties of cotton, and usually after application of a chemical defoliant or the natural defoliation that occurs after a freeze. Cotton is a perennial crop in the tropics, and without defoliation or freezing, the plant will continue to grow. Cotton continues to be picked by hand in developing countries.

What is Ginning?   The process by which the fibers are separated from the seeds is called ginning. Humans using cloth for the last seven thousand years. From the beginning, the cotton fiber is manually processed by hand until the 18th century. After the invention of the automatic ginning machine, the process becomes so easy.

Modern Ginning is done by machine.

Cotton is used to make a number of textile products. These include terrycloth for highly absorbent bath towels and robes; denim for blue jeans; cambric, popularly used in the manufacture of blue work shirts (from which we get the term "blue-collar"); and corduroy, seersucker, and cotton twill. Socks, underwear, and most T-shirts are made from cotton. Bed sheets often are made from cotton. It is a preferred material for sheets as it is hypoallergenic, easy to maintain and non-irritant to the skin.  Cotton also is used to make yarn used in crochet and knitting. Fabric also can be made from recycled or recovered cotton that otherwise would be thrown away during the spinning, weaving, or cutting process. 

While many fabrics are made completely of cotton, some materials blend cotton with other fibers, including rayon and synthetic fibers such as polyester. It can either be used in knitted or woven fabrics, as it can be blended with elastin to make a stretchier thread for knitted fabrics, and apparel such as stretch jeans. Cotton can be blended also with linen producing fabrics with the benefits of both materials. Linen-cotton blends are wrinkle resistant and retain heat more effectively than only linen, and are thinner, stronger and lighter than only cotton. In addition to the textile industry, cotton is used in fishing nets, coffee filters, tents, explosives manufacture (see nitrocellulose), cotton paper, and in bookbinding. Fire hoses were once made of cotton.  

The processes for creating regular cotton and ring-spun cotton are totally different. Regular cotton is made from soft vegetable fibers that are twisted together to make yarn, which is then woven to make material. ... When yarn is ring spun it feels heavier to the touch than regular yarns, and has a much 

Ringspun, or “Ring spinning” is an industrial textile manufacturing technique which spins raw fibers of cotton, or wool, together to make the familiar fabrics which you and I wear everyday. When cotton yarns are woven together to create a textile and the end result is a heavy-weight, loosely ‘knitted’ fabric with small spaces or gaps between the fibers of the finished textile. Standard cotton spinning is a cheap process and the finished product it creates usually has a rough, coarse finish. The completed product is typically far less durable and not nearly as comfortable as the finish of typical ringspun cloth. A great many marquee blank t-shirt producers manufacture standard spun-cotton garments because this is an inexpensive process which saves producers a fortune in production costs, whilst higher quality ring-spun fabrics cost much more to produce.

The ringspun fabric of a SpectraSpun T-shirt is knitted through an intensive process of refinement and entwining the individual cotton fibers as the fabric is created. These individual cotton strands are woven together and strengthened through the ring-spinning process to produce a cloth which is far more durable and much more tightly woven than anything regular cotton spinning can produce. The overall quality of the fabric is also much higher than fabrics produced through ordinary spinning. The resultant product is a superior textile which is very soft to the touch, and provides a snug, hug-like fit and legendary durability which will hold both its shape, prints and colors far better than ordinary cotton. You can literally “feel” the superior quality of a ring-spun garment like a SpectraSpun ringspun T-shirt because ringspun cotton always feels just slightly heavier to the touch than the same garment made with the loose, coarse finish of standard spun-cotton. The tighter ringspun weave is by far the superior canvas for any kind of Direct-to-Garment (DTG) and screen printing process as it holds the specialized printing inks that much better than the looser weave of the standard spun-cotton process. 

Because it’s considered the finest cotton in the world, it’s no wonder that farmers were keen to cultivate extra-long staple cotton on American soil. Pima traces its roots to cotton that was grown on the famed Sea Islands of South Carolina as early as the 1790s. Through selective cross-pollination with Egyptian varieties throughout the 19th century, producers developed a uniquely American extra-long staple cotton. This cotton, originally called American-Egyptian cotton, offered an incredibly high-quality fiber that resulted in a luxurious fabric as soft as it was strong. It wasn’t until the early 1900s that the U.S. Department of Agricultural got involved, working with the Pima tribe of Arizona to perfect this young crop. It was in honor of these pioneering farmers that the USDA named the American extra-long staple variety “pima cotton.” The 1950s saw great advances in pima seed quality, and innovation on this superior quality crop continues today through the efforts of our pima farmers in the San Joaquin Valley of California.