The Sustaining Rural Communities Conference – a joint initiative with the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) was a huge success, with more then 300 people attending. It explored how rural communities can remain sustainable into the future. As a result of the conference five grants were awarded to attending communities to help kick start change in their community. Publication of the Australian Cotton Production Manual 2010 provides a key resource, with advice on how to sustainably and successfully grow high yielding cotton, using either dryland or irrigation means of production. The Cotton CRC, in conjunction with I&I NSW and the Namoi CMA, released the Fishes on Cotton Farms guide. The development of a web-based glyphosate resistance toolkit allows growers to assess their on-farm risk easily and at their convenience. If growers can prevent or delay the onset of glyphosate resistant weeds on their farms, they will continue to derive maximum benefit from glyphosate, with the costeffectiveness benefits this brings. Cotton CRC researchers and extension played a major role in the identification of the exotic species, Phenacoccus solenopsis, commonly known as the Solenopsis mealy bug. Mealy bugs are sucking pests, feeding on the plant’s sap, and large populations can severely debilitate plants because the bugs compete with the plant for assimilate. CRC scientists helped growers in the Emerald and Burdekin to assess short term options to help manage and contain the mealy bug outbreak in the 2009–10 season. Extension of knowledge through the new Farm Biosecurity Manual for the Cotton Industry and the major update of the Cotton Pest Management Guide. Cottonscope, developed by CSIRO, the CRC and CRDC to improve the quality of fibre produced by Australian cotton growers and yarn quality in overseas spinning mills, has now been commercialised. Cottonscope combines two technologies developed by the same R&D partners – SiroMat (which measures fibre maturity) and Cottonscan (which measures fibre fineness) – and automatically measures cotton fineness and maturity, directly and accurately, in about 25 seconds. Findings from groundwater research help to define how groundwater levels and salinity vary, both spatially and temporally, within the Namoi Catchment. These findings will be used to further develop strategic monitoring guidelines for use by the Namoi CMA. A portable water quality test kit which quickly identifies the presence or absence of herbicides and insecticides in water has been commercialised. The Enviro Reader competition attracted 403 entries from 25 schools across six catchments, providing primary school students with basic environmental knowledge of their local areas. The first three students graduated from the joint Aboriginal Employment Strategy and Cotton CRC traineeship program. 57 storages had been assessed for evaporation and seepage losses from across the cotton industry. Findings show that only a small proportion of storages have seepage losses exceeding five millimetres a day. The suite of tools in CottASSIST continues to expand, with the addition of the new Mite yield loss estimator, which allows growers or consultants to enter mite census data and access likely yield loss and need for control.