QDAF's Dr Paul Grundy talks first irrigation in a water challenged season for Central QLD growers:

Considering planting dryland cotton this season? In this article, QLD DAF's Paul Grundy talks about the environmental factors that impact cotton establishment in dryland cotton.

When you break it down, seedling establishment is dependent on two things:

Mike Bange, Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO and James Quinn, Marketing & Extension Lead, CSD are often asked questions regarding limited water decisions. Here are their answers to commonly asked questions:

Which configurations yield highest?

Fully irrigated solid planted cotton will out-yield wider row configurations on a per hectare basis NOT necessarily on a per ML basis. (Figure 1).  

In this blog, Richard Sequeira provides information on silverleaf whitefly (SLW) and solenopsis mealybug for cotton growers in the 2017-18 season.

Whitefly

The TIMS committee has approved a 30-day window for the application of pyriproxifen (Admiral) to control whitefly (SLW) in all cotton growing districts/areas in Australia, beginning in the 2017-18 season:

Q: Why is a 30-day window necessary?

With very hot conditions forecast across cotton growing valleys, CSIRO researchers Dr Mike Bange and Dr Rose Brodrick talk about managing heat stress in your cotton:

Cotton growers are invited to participate in a water productivity benchmarking study, from the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) Agriculture Division, over the 2017-18 season.

The 2017-18 survey, which is delivered with support from the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC), follows on from similar surveys in 2006-07, 2008-09 and 2012-13, which found that the cotton industry has achieved a 40 per cent increase in water productivity since the study conducted by Tennakoon and Milroy (2003) (0.79 bales per megalitre) 10 years earlier.

In 2001, in partnership with Greening Australia and the Australian Government's Envirofund, cotton growers Geoff and Ally O'Neill planted eight hectares of native trees and shrubs on their cotton property “Lllano” near Bald Hill. 

“We wanted to increase the biodiversity on our farm as well as provide a windbreak,” Geoff said. “Fifteen years later we definitely see more birds and lizards and feel the corridors are contributing to natural pest control.”

Before planting the corridors, Geoff fallowed the area for 18 months.

CRDC has recently jumped on board as a sponsor of WeedSmart. In this WeedSmart podcast, hear from CottonInfo’s Regional Extension Officer Annabel Twine and Tech Specialist Eric Koetz re a cotton weed management update. 

A four-day fauna survey on the farm of Cotton RiverCare Champion Mark Palfreyman yielded more than 130 different species of native animals – a promising result, according to Mark.