[6] Beginning in 1905 with 1-acre (0.40 ha) of land, he was able to observe nine successive cotton crops in great detail, studying genetics, physiology and textile technology.
In this period, he published 45 papers and the book, The Cotton Plant in Egypt,[7] in which he summarised and added to his studies in genetics and physiology.
Balls[8] returned to England in 1914, where he settled in Cambridgeshire and wrote The development and properties of raw cotton (1915) and Egypt and the Egyptians (1915).
The cotton quality reports published by Balls between 1912 and 1928 were to be cited by fiber physiologists and textile technologists for more than seventy years.
Personal research was limited but he was able to make great practical achievements using his administrative skills and to co-ordinate the work on cotton botany, agronomy and entomology.
He discovered that deliberate genetical selection could be done for yarn strength, which was the most important discovery made in cotton breeding at that time.
During World War II, Balls' services were used by the forces and he became Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Commander-in-Chief at Middle East Headquarters, where he devoted much time to the invention of a mine detector.