This project is to facilitate grower participation in CA Grower panels to provide research development and extension investment advice.The Cotton Australia grower RD&E Advisory Panels function in providing practical advice on research, development and extension (RD&E) needs and priorities within the industry. This advice forms important guidance to CRDC for strategic R&D planning, annual operation planning, development of Expressions of Interest and resultant CRDC decisions as to project investments. Cotton Australia facilitates 4 advisory panels that are aligned with the CRDC strategic plan priorities. The panels consist of up to 40 grower, consultant or ginning member representatives from every cotton growing region in Australia.

No report available

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.

For sustainable cotton production, Australian cotton farming systems need to promote and optimize soil biological functions to by improving nutrient use efficiency, increasing biological nitrogen inputs, reducing disease impacts and maintaining environmental health. Currently cotton farming systems involve management practices such as reduced tillage, crop rotation, residue retention, compost and fertilizer addition and reduced insecticide use all of which can potentially alter key soil microbial functions. This project addressed three key areas of soil microbial community and biological processes with an aim to improve current knowledge and evaluate the impact of management, soil and environmental factors affecting them. They include:

1. Determined the effect of management practices including rotation, stubble retention and organic manure application on microbial communities involved in C and N cycling, free-living (FL) N fixation and carbon turnover.

2. Characterized the genetic diversity of soil fungal communities as influenced by management practices and linked it with disease incidence and suppression.

3. Quantified the effect of compost addition materials on soil biological fertility.

This project utilized on-going field experiments at ACRI and in Queensland which demonstrated significant effects of management practices on N cycling and uptake, disease incidence and crop yields. These studies were completed with targeted glass-house and laboratory incubation experiments. Therefore, new knowledge of key biological processes from long-term experiments can be effectively linked with management systems under field conditions.

Briefly, the advancement of knowledge provided in this project includes:

• In cotton soils, crop rotation and fertilizer management have a significant influence on the microbial community and biological processes involved in N and C cycling processes. Populations of FL N-fixing bacteria were significantly higher in the D1 experiment compared to that in the F6E experiment indicating the effect of stubble management type and timing of fertilizer application. In both the experiments, grain legume rotation crops (e.g. vetch and fababean) significantly improved microbial activity, catabolic diversity and N mineralization potential in surface soils, however the magnitude of effect varied significantly. Microbial activity and microbial biomass levels were lowest in the Continuous Cotton rotation suggesting rotation based management of N availability and fertilizer efficiency is possible.

• Soil type and environment (location) and cropping history have a significant influence on the diversity, genetic composition and fungal community in the surface 0-10 cm cotton soils. A total of 370 genera were found in the 5 cotton experimental sites, however, a few groups (20 families) were dominant. Fungal community composition varied significantly between the cotton growing regions and was also influenced by crop rotation. Lower diversity and abundance of total fungi were associated with higher disease incidence in intensively managed cotton systems e.g. rotations including brassica crops and Continuous Cotton rotation.

• Composts vary in their chemical composition significantly in terms of major nutrients and trace elements and biologically available carbon (BDOC). In a long-term field experiment, four years of compost addition on a Vertosol had no significant effect on microbial and nutrient properties. In controlled environment experiments, addition of composts increased microbial activity for two week only. The magnitude of the effect on biological functions and microbial diversity varied between different composts both in the laboratory and field experiments. Thus long-term effects of repeated compost application would depend upon amount and frequency of application esp. for a change in microbial diversity and plant beneficial functions. Therefore, chemical analysis of the compost material before application is recommended to more fully consider its’ potential benefits. These effects need to be evaluated in different soil types and environments.

Overall, the new knowledge on the dynamics of microbial community and biological processes suggest that some of the key microbial groups and functions in cotton soils are regionally specific and can influenced by management. Thus a designer management may need to be applied to better harness specific biological benefits and is the foundation for building and managing more resilient cotton production systems.

This travel scholarship funding enabled the attendance at the 3rd International Whitefly Symposium, held in Fremantle in September 2018 was a good opportunity to present Australian researchers whitefly research from the past 5 years, which was part of the projects CSP140, CSP1303, CSP 1401 and CSP 1703, to an international audience.

The researcher presented a paper titled “Indirect whitefly/plant interactions: honeydew related factors affecting cotton lint quality and options for mitigation” and Smith presented a paper on “Silver leaf whitefly predation: a DNA approach to its evaluation”. The conference enabled the researcher to gauge the extent of international whitefly research, interact with other whitefly researchers to exchange experiences, become aware of new developments and ideas, and recognise opportunities for communication and collaboration.

The winter edition of CRDC's magazine, Spotlight, looks at the future of cotton innovation, with the launch of the new five-year CRDC Strategic RD&E Plan.

Over the next five years we expect to see a lot of change in our industry, practically from where we grow cotton to the technology we will use to grow it. CRDC’s role is to support sustainable growth, responsible practices and profitability across a range of endeavours including building capacity. As a result, in this edition of Spotlight, we look at the new Strategic RD&E Plan, and some of the research already underway to place our industry in the box seat for future readiness - from canopy temperature sensors, to temperature inversion weather stations, weed sensing for robotics and irrigation automation technology.

In addition, this edition tackles global news of a cotton 'megapest', talking to Australian experts about what this means for the industry and Australian growers; CRDC's work with the startup community through accelerators, incubators and venture capitalists to bring beneficial new technology products and services to the industry (including an exciting new CRDC-supported initiative at this year's Australian Cotton Conference, Startup Alley); and the outcomes of the CottonInfo researchers tour from February 2018, which focused on optimising irrigation and nitrogen use efficiency and took a team of researchers out to six cotton growing valleys to meet with 440 growers and consultants.

This travel scholarship funded the attendance of one researcher to participate and present at the 2018 FUSCOM Conference. The presentation topic, "Can We Really Use a Soil Test to Manage Black Root Rot Risks?The Initial Approach" explored growers ability to use real time tests to diagnose Black Root Rot(BRR).

These tests were designed to be predictive tools for growers to enable them to make agronomic decisions in a timely cost effective manner to minimise losses as a result of BRR.

The focus of the project was the strengthening of the existing extension efforts on new irrigation scheduling technologies. A combination of tools were used and promoted as aids to improve the accuracy of depth of water required and applied and the timing of applications for optimum agronomic decisions.

At present, in the sugarcane industry extension activities are being advocated by extension deliverers towards the use of available tools for better on-farm water management. The combination of soil moisture monitoring (SMM) tools in combination with a sugarcane specific crop model (IrrigWeb) to assist irrigators gain confidence with using both tools.

IrrigWeb provides irrigators with current and local advice on sugarcane crop water use and development. The tool combines crop water use estimates with user-defined irrigation system constraints and crop cycle inputs to schedule future irrigation events. The selection of the model was based on the review of the tools for irrigation scheduling in the sugarcane industry document which was also co-funded by CRDC (Project RRDP1609) as the most highly rated by practitioners and advisors consulted with.

The 2018-19 CRDC Researchers' Handbook is a key resource for all researchers working with, or interested in applying for funding from, the CRDC. Updated annually, the Handbook outlines the key information researchers need to know, including key dates, the application process, funding and stipends available, the payment, evaluation and reporting processes and the CRDC’s intellectual property policy. These, and other critical details needed by researchers are provided in the Handbook.