New gin could put Limestone back on top

Published 6:00 am Friday, August 17, 2018

Alabama is known by a lot of things, and cotton has generally been one of them. Limestone County is also known for a lot of things, and — well, cotton may not be one of them, but Limestone County definitely held the title as Alabama’s leading county in cotton production for all but two years between 1979 and 2007, according to the National Cotton Council of America.

That’s 28 years as Alabama’s “cotton king.” Thanks to a new cotton gin opening in October, it’s a title Limestone County might just reach again.

With 35,000 square feet, about $1 million in new electronics and technology and the ability to double the current gin’s baling capacity, the cotton gin has gone from suggestion to reality in less than a year.

“It went together amazingly fast,” Billy Sickler, assistant manager of the Associated Growers Co-operative, said. “It’s hard to get a whole new plant in between seasons. We just finished ginning cotton March 6, so we really didn’t have a whole lot of time.”

Cotton season, he said, usually runs around mid-September or October until about Christmas.

“We want to get everything processed by Christmastime so farmers can get their money by the first of the year,” Sickler said.

When the board of directors for AGC met in November, they still had $7 million in cotton waiting to gin, he said. It took five and a half months of 12-hour days, seven days a week, to get it done. In that time, Sickler said, workers took five days off — three for Christmas, one for New Year’s and one for Thanksgiving.

Every other day was spent ginning cotton in a cotton gin that had parts from the 1950s and 1970s. Sickler said the gin cost $50,000 a year in maintenance, $40,000 a month in utilities and $15 per bale in labor.

With the new gin, he said, maintenance will be less of an issue, labor cost will be almost cut in half and they’ll be able to produce 50–60 bales of cotton per hour instead of the current gin’s 20–30.

“You can do twice as many bales with the same amount of help,” he said.

This means they can also run the gin three months out of the year instead of almost six, which will help offset the increase in utility cost. Sickler said utility bills for the gin are expected to go up to about $70,000 per month.

Sickler likened the new gin to the new Athens High School in that they were planning to open earlier but were delayed by wet weather.

“It’s going to be awesome,” he said. “We’re really looking forward to it. It’s stressful getting it done, about like the high school, but there’s nothing you can do but move forward.”