The commonly used Micronaire value for cotton is related to both fibre fineness and maturity. There is a need for a new measurement technique to separate these. This is of particular importance to the Australian industry where varieties of fine, mature cotton have the potential to be wrongfully discounted commercially by misinterpreting a low Micronaire value as indicating immaturity in a coarser fibre. A recent CRDC funded preliminary project (CRDC Project CSWT IC) demonstrated that the Sirolan-Laserscan, in a novel mode of operation, is able to measure the fineness of cotton fibres independent of fibre maturity. Following this successful preliminary study, the next stage in this research will be to undertake more exhaustive testing and trials of the approach and to examine (a) possibilities for also obtaining fibre maturity information using the Sirolan-Laserscan and (b) the scope for scaling up the technique from the laboratory to become a useful commercial measurement technique. Before embarking on this more major research phase, the current trip was designed to obtain an assessment of the commercial potential of the project. A paper on our preliminary results was presented to the US Beltwide meeting and also I visited and had indepth discussions with the other key researchers in this area at the USDA in New Orleans. This was an ideal opportunity as cotton fibre quality is currently assessed commercially using the HVI system manufactured by Uster Zellweger in USA with significant input from the USDA