Stickiness occurs when excessive sugars present on fibers are transferred to equipment and interfere with processing. Sugars may be insect- or plant-derived. Though sugars are ubiquitous in lint, they usually occur at levels that pose no processing difficulties. This details the sources and components of problem sugars on harvested lint, the processing impacts of stickiness, and strategies for avoiding or mitigating stickiness.

Cottons contaminated with stickiness cause multiple problems in the spinning mills. The honeydew present on the cotton lint is able to contaminate all the mechanical instruments used in the transformation process from fiber to yarn, i.e. opening,carding, drawing, roving and spinning operations. These contaminants are mainly sugar deposits produced either by the cotton plant itself (physiological sugars) or by the feeding insects (entomological sugars), the latter being the most common source of contamination.

Honeydew, when present in sufficient quantity, is the main source of sugars that can result in sticky lint. Honeydew is excreted by certain phloem-feeding insects including such common pests of cotton as aphids and whiteflies. These insects are capable of transforming ingested sucrose into over twenty different sugars in their excreted honeydew. The major sugars in cotton insect honeydew are trehalulose, melezitose, sucrose, fructose and glucose.

Another source of stickiness is free plant sugars sometimes found in immature fibers. Cotton fiber is largely cellulose that is formed from sugars synthesized by the plant. Dry, mature cotton fibers contain little free sugar, while immature cotton fibers contain glucose, fructose, sucrose, and other sugars. If immature cotton fiber is subjected to a freeze, complex sugars may be broken down to release additional simple sugars. Less commonly, oils released by crushed seed coat fragments can also result in stickiness. In this case, raffinose is the characteristic sugar.

Sugars differ in their stickiness. For example, sucrose, melezitose, and trehalulose are all significantly stickier when deposited on fiber than are glucose or fructose. Further, trehalulose-contaminated fiber is stickier than fiber with an equivalent amount of melezitose. Mixtures of sugars, such as occur in honeydew, tend to be stickier than single sugars. Localized concentration of sugars like honeydew is at higher risk of causing stickiness than more evenly distributed sources like plant sugars.

Sticky cotton can reduce cotton gin output (in bales/hr) by up to 25%. At the textile mill, excessive wear and increased maintenance of machinery may occur even with slightly sticky cotton. In severe instances mill shutdown with a thorough cleanup is required.