In the 2020 cotton season, the Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service cotton classing office in Macon, Georgia has classed 2.2 million samples, of which approximately 895,000 contained seed coat fragments. In addition to seed coat fragments, a portion of samples also contained whole cottonseed. Researchers are actively examining the situation to determine the cause of this significant increase. Darryl Earnest, Deputy Administrator for USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service Cotton and Tobacco Program, joins us to talk about the cotton classing system and invites cotton producers and other industry stakeholders to engage with and observe the cotton classing process.