Moscow ? With construction of the first cotton gin in southwest Kansas well under way, some farmers may be pulling cotton by Oct. 15.

The project began earlier this summer southwest of Moscow, just off U.S. 50.

The gin, which removes the sticky seeds from the cotton, will be able to handle 60,000 bales of cotton.

After it’s ginned, the cotton will be hauled to a warehouse in Altus, Okla., where it will be stored and marketed by Plains Cotton Cooperative Assn., the national marketing group of which NCG is a member.

Jay Garetson, an NCG member, has about 1,000 acres of cotton to harvest. This will be his second season growing the crop in western Kansas, and he said the local gin will save him money.

“The cotton crop looks very promising,” he said. “By next week, aerial sprayers will be applying the ethephon, which will trigger a hormone response in the cotton to cause the boles to open. That is necessary to the cotton crop out here to deal with our shortened growing season.”

Garetson estimates it then will take 10 to 14 days for the cotton to fully open. A week after that, the crop will be sprayed with a defoliant that will cause the plants’ leaves to drop.

“All that will be left will be the stem and the bole,” he said. “The fields will be really pretty then. They’ll look like they’re full of fluffy white sheep.”

Garetson estimates the area has about 30,000 acres of cotton to be ginned.