Brashears led research that resulted in modifications to commercial cotton strippers that reduced: 1) foreign matter in seed cotton and 2) the number of lint grades being reduced due to bark. He participated in work that demonstrated that the effect of grade reductions due to excess bark in lint did not accurately reflect the effect on yarn spinning during textile processing.
He also has been involved in projects that demonstrate the effects of defoliation and desiccation on harvesting, field storage and ginning of stripper cotton.
“Alan'swork to improve the quality of stripper harvesting is an important reason that the quality of West Texas cotton has been steadily on the rise,” Owen said. “Many of us in the cotton growing regions dominated by machine picking may not be that familiar with Alan's research, but his work teamed with research at the Lubbock Gin Lab to improve the quality of ginning stripper harvested cotton has been a very valuable body of work.”
NCGA President Larry McClendon, a Marianna, Ark., ginner, said that besides their USDA/ARS research and administrative responsibilities at their respective gin labs, “both of these gentlemen have played key roles in making our NCGA Ginning School program the success that it has become.
Their willingness to provide support to this program by making local arrangements, arranging for instructors, serving as instructors themselves and providing general leadership and guidance to the program since its inception, is just one example of the service that Alan and Stanley have both exhibited over their careers.”
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