Technological innovations in the cotton industry are advancing mechanisation and seeking to create improved efficiencies of labour and energy inputs. These innovations are often adopted rapidly without specific knowledge to support the adoption. That is to say, innovations are often adopted on the face value of a proclaimed efficiency. Thus, the farming system impact of these innovations is not well understood in the majority of cases. While the cotton industry has developed and endeavours to use best management practices (BMP) for farming system components (including soils and water), an impact assessment framework for evaluating the impacts of these new technologies on the whole farming system does not exist. The rapid adoption of the round bale (RB) picker presents an opportunity to investigate the specific effects of this new technology, and in doing so, inform development of an impact assessment framework applicable to other technological innovations for cotton.

Of particular concern is the potential for delayed impact of RB pickers on sustainable management and production, particularly from a soils perspective. These machines are designed to provide energy/labour efficiencies (the current driving force), but impacts such as increased compaction resulting in increased soil-bed preparation costs may emerge in subsequent seasons. The major impact of machinery on the soil is compaction, and not surprisingly ‘SOILpak For Cotton Growers’ declares compaction as a yield limiting factor in cotton production. Compaction has historically been managed through various techniques, such as controlled traffic farming (CTF) and minimum tillage. In the case of the RB picking system, these machines eliminate the need for the boll buggy by preparing round bales on-the-go, but the trade off is an increase in total machine weight. This raises concerns of increased soil compaction, especially under moist soil conditions generally experienced in irrigated fields, or during wet cotton seasons. The ability of the soil to carry the increased weight under marginal traction conditions may narrow the harvest windows. Furthermore, given the adoption rate, it is unlikely that optimisation of machine performance within individual farming systems has occurred. The potential to provide further impact offset capability is real and should be optimised. The question is then raised: “Is this machine being utilised optimally and do the economic efficiencies offset potential field impacts?”

As the uptake of the RB picking system has been widespread and rapid, it is not a matter of whether or not the industry should adopt this technology, rather a process of determining its impacts, evaluating impacts against previous harvesting systems, and developing strategies to optimise operating performance. By engaging the industry in discussion and reviewing current information on harvesting system implementation and performance, this project seeks to determine a series of indicators that can be measured in-field to assess field impacts and machine performance. In doing so, the basis of an impact assessment framework will be constructed and refined over several cotton seasons of in-field monitoring of RB picking systems.