The 2019/20 irrigation season saw another low allocation year for general security irrigators in the Murrumbidgee Valley, with only 5% entitlement for much of the season. This resulted in a dramatic decrease in the area of cotton grown in the region.

The IREC executive made a strategic decision to purchase 75ML of water and grow 14ha of irrigated cotton at the IREC Field Station to enable cotton focussed research to continue in a low allocation year. While this was not a financially beneficial decision to IREC, it was thought the benefits to IREC members, the cotton industry and our research partners of maintaining research projects at the Field Station far outweighed the possible financial negatives of this decision.

Research and demonstrations taking place at the IREC Field Station this season included: Long term benefits of using Animal Manure (Dr Wendy Quayle- Deakin University), Herbicide Demonstrations (Eric Koetz- NSWDPI), Roundup Ready X-Tend (Bayer), Zytek (Kim Russell), Sensors for Smart Bankless Automation (Dr John Hornbuckle -Deakin University), Foliar Fertiliser (Omnia), My Digital Farm, and long term cotton rotation project. A number of these projects have been at the site for the past 3 years. Of particular importance is the long term rotation project allowing this block to have the 3 years of cotton to monitor the build-up soil disease and assess the potential impact on yield in southern soils.

Approximately 90 people attended the annual IREC field day in January, where the researchers spoke about their projects.