This project was jointly funded through a QDAFF and CRDC partnership to provide a development and delivery extension program focused on national crop protection in cotton based farming systems, whilst also providing regional extension support within Central Queensland.

As part of the broader crop protection and biosecurity area within a farming system extension strategy, the project addressed targets relating to volunteer regrowth and farm hygiene practices. The extension strategy for these targets was focused on ensuring growers and agronomists were aware of the issues and were able to identify barriers to adoption, and to deliver training or identify research needs as appropriate. The extension strategy also involved strategic collaboration with research, particularly on crop protection issues, and included the communication of research to the wider industry as well as support to industry capacity building and communication

The project has been successful in delivering a campaign to increase awareness of the prevalence of volunteer cotton, as a significant threat to crop protection and biosecurity. The associated risks of volunteer cotton have been well integrated into various other pest, weed and disease messages, with recent survey data indicating that the majority of growers rate control of volunteers as either extremely or somewhat important. However, this increase in industry awareness has not yet translated into an on-ground change, with recent surveys demonstrating the presence of volunteer, ratoon and feral cotton to be unacceptably high throughout all cotton growing areas. Building on the work of this and other previous crop protection projects, it is strongly recommended that future research and extension is undertaken to refine volunteer cotton control tactics.