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Cotton fiber stickiness due to honeydew from insect infestations is a severe problem in many cotton producing countries.  In the southwest United States, honeydew secreted by the sweetpotato whitefly (Bemisia tabaci Gennadius) or cotton aphid (Aphis gossypii Glover) onto cotton fiber is a major detriment to lint quality and marketability.  These honeydews have been analyzed by gradient anion high performance liquid chromatography and found to consist of at least 30 different sugars, some of which have quite unusual structures.  Results of enzymic digestion studies indicate that many of these sugars in B. tabaci  honeydew consist entirely of  a-D-glucose and contain both the trehalose moiety [a-D-glc(1´1)a-D-glc] and the maltose moiety  [a-D-glc(1Æ4)a-D-glc] in their structure. From a knowledge of the chemical composition of this sugar mixture, an enzyme preparation was identified which, when sprayed in an aqueous solution on honeydew-contaminated seedcotton, significantly reduced the stickiness of the resulting lint as measured by either the minicard or the thermodetector tests.

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