US Upland Cotton

Memphis, Texas & California growths — USDA HVI classed

US Upland is the physical the ICE Cotton No. 2 contract is written against, and its defining commercial advantage is not the fibre but the classing. Every American bale is HVI tested by the USDA under a single national programme, so a buyer receives an instrument-measured sheet for the exact bales shipped rather than a merchant's assurance — upper half mean length, micronaire, strength in grams per tex, uniformity, and colour by reflectance and yellowness against the grade ladder from Good Middling through Strict Middling and Middling to Strict Low Middling, plus leaf grade and trash. The growths differ in character: Memphis territory and the Mid-South give longer, stronger fibre; Texas and the plains produce huge volume with more variability; California and the West produce the highest-quality Upland in the country alongside its Pima crop. Bales run around 227 kg pressed.

Buy US Upland where classing transparency and contract security matter as much as the lint itself: ring and open-end spinning at scale, mills that need consistent supply against a documented specification, and any programme that hedges on ICE, since the physical and the futures are directly connected. Machine picking also means low contamination, which is a real cost saving in the mill. The trade-offs are honest ones. It is rarely the cheapest cotton on a landed basis — Indian and Brazilian lint frequently undercuts it — and Texas growths in a dry year can bring micronaire and strength variability that a mill spinning fine counts will not tolerate. Specify the growth as well as the grade if consistency matters. For anything above 1-3/8 inch staple you need Pima, which is a different species and a different page. CBIL brokers US Upland against USDA HVI classing sheets, growth, grade, staple, micronaire and strength, on FOB US Gulf and West Coast, CFR and CIF terms.