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Cotton Module Traceability

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for Enhanced Traceability and Logistics of Cotton Modules

John Deere introduced its new round module building cotton harvester over 10 years ago and now round modules are the majority of the cotton processed by gins in many regions of the U.S. With that level of adoption, the time has come to take advantage of a key feature of those round modules – everyone contains four RFID tags and an added external tag that uniquely identifies that module. In 2018, the America Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers adopted an electronic module numbering standard that extends the use of RFID beyond only John Deere modules. Cotton Incorporated has funded a demonstration with the USDA-ARS gin lab in Lubbock to allow the option to use only the RFID tag to track the cotton from the field throughout the ginning process without adding other tags or spray paint. Additionally, ownership information is only entered once. This project has involved the generation of many software tools that have been developed in an open source environment so they are freely available to gins as well as commercial software companies supporting the ginning industry. There is also an Android app in the Google Play store that can be used to scan the code on round modules using the devices camera by pairing it with a Bluetooth RFID scanner.

Several online resources have been generated as part of this project:

  • An overview of all the tools available in 2017 was presented in an extended session a gin school in Stoneville, MS and those presentations translated in webinars available at: https://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org 
  • Details around the electronic numbering standard for cotton modules is presented at: https://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/ 
  • All the source code for the tools we have sponsored to support the use of RFID tags is at: https://github.com/bohntech/ 
  • RFIDModule Scan is an Android app for scanning modules at the edge of field. Google Play Store link to application here .
  • CottonHarvestFileDownload – is the tool for gins to retrieve HID files through Deere’s API.  Executable is available here 
  • RFIDGinDataManagement – A master database to track a modules progress from the field to the gin yard to the module feeder.  This software is still in development and completed components of the source code are on the github site.
Cotton Incorporated