Bale of cotton at LA State Cotton Museum IMG 7387

A Cotton bale is a standard-sized and weighted pack of compressed

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...

lint after ginning. The dimensions and weight may vary with different cotton-producing countries.

Significance

A bale has an essential role from the

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is use ...

to the

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

. The cotton yield is calculated in terms of the number of bales. Bale is a standard packaging method for cotton to avoid various hassles in handling, packing, and transportation. The bales also protect the lint from foreign contamination and make them readily identifiable.

Standards

Bale

A "bale of cotton" is also the standard trading unit for cotton on the wholesale national and international markets. Although different cotton-growing countries have their bale standards, for example, In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, cotton is usually measured at approximately 0.48 cubic meters (17 cubic feet) and weighs 226.8 kilograms (500 pounds). In

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

, the standard bale size is 170 kg.

Parameters

The most important

parameter A parameter (), generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system (meaning an event, project, object, situation, etc.). That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when ...

s of a cotton bale are: * Density (448 kg/m³) * Measurements of the bales (nominally 1.40 m X 0.53 m X 0.69