Page still under construction April 27th, 2020
Bleak Hall Sea Island White Cotton
Bleak Hall Sea Island White Cotton boll & small spun sample
Several years ago, we got six cotton plants from Joey on Maui. He said he was doing some genetic research in Hilo in the 70's. Since the cotton genome is pretty well known, he used cotton for his study and ordered cotton seeds from the USDA seed bank. He chose 'Bleak Hall Sea Island White' on a whim since the name was so interesting. Once he had grown it out to mature cotton bolls, he realized that it produces exceedingly excellent fiber.
He had saved the seeds in his refrigerator and when we got into a discussion about mixing angora fluff with Bleak Hall Sea Island cotton he sprouted some seeds and brought me the plants when he came over to this island to get a fluffy bunny.
He said the plants were sprouted from the seeds he got from the USDA seed bank in the 1970's and that the seeds were collected in the early 1930's. The boll weevil decimated the cotton fields in the 1920's so this would probably have been some of the last commercial Bleak Hall sea island cotton crops. They were supposed to have sold this cotton for much more than regular cotton, but it required special handling because of the fiber length to make it into threads and yarns.
Two of the cotton plants were given to a friend so in case something happened to the ones here, there would be a reserve source to get them back again. He's currently - as of April 2020 - thinking of expanding his plants into a small backyard 'micro-plantation' for enough cotton production to make yarn and sourcing a mill that can spin the fiber.
Since we don't have a gin for separating the fiber from the seed (although it does come off the seed pretty easily and cleanly) I've been hand picking the 'lint' from the seeds. During that process, the seeds are sorted with the seeds from the best bolls being saved separately. Having more seeds than I know what to do with, I gave him a pile of the better seeds, so he has planted those out for his backyard micro-plantation.
The cotton plants were planted here on August 4th, 2015 (as of this writing, 1728 days ago) in a corner of our first raised bed garden. They are still there and still producing cotton so they are a long lived cotton plant.
The plants are rather spindly, they wouldn't make much of a hedge for screening purposes but they do make a pretty good bean trellis. These bean trellis cotton plants are semi-bonsai since they're planted in a very shallow planting area. When planted in deep soil, they will grow up to about seven feet.
Because of the staple length (the length of the fiber) Sea Island white cotton isn't ginned (that's what it's called when the seeds are removed from the fluff) by the regular cotton gins since those would tear the fibers into short lengths.