Applying poultry litter to fertilize no-till cotton implies the litter is left on the surface without soil-incorporation which exposes the litter and its nutrients to risks of loss in runoff water and volatilization. This research was conducted to test if light soil-incorporation of litter increases the N nutrition of no-till cotton by reducing loss of litter-derived N. The results showed N concentration in leaves, stems, and other aboveground plant parts was greater when the litter was incorporated with the top 50 mm soil layer than when left unincorporated. Soil-incorporating the litter increased the amount of plant-available N probably by conserving litter-derived N from loss to volatilization and runoff. Regardless of the incorporation, cotton fertilized with litter had less tissue N concentration than cotton fertilized with the conventional inorganic fertilizer urea-ammonium nitrate (UAN). Yet, cotton fertilized with litter yielded better than cotton fertilized with the standard UAN.