Aims * To evaluate treatments that inhibit or restrict microbial degradation to cotton when the seed cotton harvest is delayed by wet weather.

Microbial damage to raw cotton, sometimes referred to as weathering damage, is a common event in most parts of the world. Microbes, viz. bacteria and fungi, are omnipresent in the environment.

Field experiments at Narrabri in 1993, 1994 and 1995 have utilised overhead sprinklers and, portable rain-out shelters.