The Chick Feeding Value of Meals Prepared from Glandless Cottonseed

HOPI cotton, classified as Gossypium hirustum race punctatum, was first reported by Lewton (1912) and later by Fulton (1938) to have a variable number of pigment glands in the boll. McMichael (1959) in studying the possibility that Hopi cotton might be used as a commercial source of gland-free cottonseed, found by selecting for low gland content of the leaves and seed, the gossypol content of the seeds could be reduced nearly to zero with the other seed characteristics not materially being affected. Gossypol analysis of glanded and gland-free cottonseed meals (Mattson, 1960) indicated that the seed is essentially “free” of gossypol, giving “free” gossypol values, as compared to gland-containing cottonseed, of 0.002 percent and 0.40 percent, respectively. This work alsoindicated that the oil from the two groups of seed was similar in composition except for gossypol. Rat growth data (Smart et al., 1960) showed no detectable nutritional difference between…