Technical Abstract: Cleaning cotton generally lowers the trash content but also lowers most of the important fiber quality characteristics and reduces the amount of marketable fiber. Ginners must compromise between trash removal and fiber damage when choosing cleaning machinery for specific cottons. For machine-picked cotton, ginners should use 12-14 cylinders of seed cotton cleaning along with a stick machine and one or two lint cleaners, depending on seed cotton trash content and color potential. For stripped cotton, a second stick machine and an air line cleaner or cleaning separator should also be included. To deliver the absolute highest quality products, growers and ginners must take care during production, harvesting, ginning, and textile processing to avoid practices that may diminish fiber quality. Emerging technologies will improve fiber quality and farmer profits by optimizing the ginning process.