CSD 20 saw to commercial comparison
CSD currently runs all its trials through a 20 saw Cherokee gin stand. This provides a single cleaner ahead of the saws, which separate the lint and seed, and a final lint cleaner before we gather samples for classing.
Why does CSD do this?
Benefits:
- The use of a single gin allows for consistency of turnout across all of our trials, allowing better cross industry comparisons. Commercial gins have more options to clean seed cotton and improve lint recovery, which can lead to differences in turnout percentages across a gin run.
- Speed of result generation. We have control over how quickly we can generate results, which is helpful for getting yield data out to growers before seed order deadlines. In the examples that follow, CSD has ginned 91 of its 2024/25 season trials, but we only have commercial data back for 15 at the time of analysis.
Risks:
- Simplicity of the gin stand removes some of the possibilities available at a commercial gin (e.g. drying, cleaning, saw speed), which could result in discrepancies from commercially attained ginning.
- We only have a single point of operation, so if it breaks, we’re back to relying on commercial data.
How accurate is the CSD 20 saw gin to commercial ginning results?
The 15 trials that have both CSD 20 saw and commercial gin data so far in 2024/25 presents 71 paired variety results. The average turn out between the two ginning programmes was 43.5% and 43.9% for the CSD 20 saw and commercial stands, respectively. Mathematically, there was not difference in turnout between the CSD 20 saw and the commercial stands (ANOVA p=0.2, Paired T-test p=0.08, Table 2).
| Method of ginning | Average turnout from 71 paired samples |
| CSD 20 saw gin | 43.5% |
| Commercial gin results | 43.9% |
We also analysed and graphed the turnout results by variety. This help highlight just how small the differences are between the CSD and commercial results for the same varieties (figure 1). The error bars indicate how consistent the ginning is across each variety and gin. The larger error bars on some of the commercial gin averages are because the data came from nine different commercial gins each with more options to optimise lint recovery than we have at CSD.
Figure 1 A CSD 20 saw gin turnout to Commercial results obtained by the 18th July 2025 for 15 trials and 71 individual variety and line samples. The average value is plotted with the standard deviation in the samples for each variety captured in the error bars.
In relation to these similarities, when looking at the paired data the biggest reduction in turn out, between the CSD 20 saw and a commercial stans, was a in 0.02 %. However, the greatest increase in turnout was 8.3% higher. This result relates to a commercial run that reported a turnout of 52%, which, whilst exceptionally good news for the grower, compared to CSD’s average turnout for the variety of 43.7%, which was much closer to the 43.8% average when we looked at all the commercial and CSD data for this variety. We did query this with the gin, and they confirmed the 52% turn out figure.
At CSD, we have confidence that our approach to generating reliable data is open, honest, consistent and accurate. Gin turnout is often varied due to differences used by the gin and the ginner to deliver what they believe is best. This is why when fields are sent to different commercial gins you can get different results. It is also partly because you can’t run the identical sample through two gins.
If you feel there is a way CSD could improve our approach to ginning and the presentation of our trial results, then please let us know, because we’re always open to improvements and new ideas.