This document provides a brief outline of the projects CRDC has invested in for 2020-21 (current as of May 2020).

The Australian Cotton Research Conference is a biennial Research Conference run by the Association of Australian Cotton Scientists (AACS) hosted each time by a different Research Organisation and administered by an Organising Committee. This was the third Conference and was hosted by CSIRO in Canberra at the CSIRO Discovery Centre. The Committee for the 2017 event was Danny Llewellyn, Chair (CSIRO, Canberra); Paul Grundy (QDAF); Warren Conaty (CSIRO, Narrabri); Ruth Redfern (CRDC); Mark Peoples (CSIRO, Canberra);Iain Wilson (CSIRO, Canberra); Filomena Pettolino (CSIRO, Canberra); Colleen MacMillan (CSIRO, Canberra); Philippe Moncuquet (CSIRO, Canberra);Lisa Ermanli, Admin Support (CSIRO, Canberra). The objectives of the biennial Australian Cotton Research Conferences are to serve as a platform for cotton researchers to present and discuss concepts, key issues and the latest findings in research relevant to the Australian cotton industry, and cotton research community. The conference also encourages networking and collaborations, and a better understanding of the scope of science performed across the breadth of the cotton industry. The three day conference included plenary lectures from renowned speakers (including one international invited speaker, Dr Juan Landivar Bowles, Texas A&M, USA), and research talks within a range of themes, as well as tours of the High Performance Plant Phenomics Centre at CSIRO. There was a welcome reception on the first evening at the CSIRO Discovery Centre and a conference dinner on the second night at the National Museum of Australia, where a number of Association Awards were presented (including the Association’s Early Career Scientist Encouragement Award that was presented to Dr Guna Nachimuthu (NSW DPI) in acknowledgement of his contributions to soil science, the Service to Cotton Science Award to Dr Lewis Wilson (CSIRO) for his contributions to cotton IPM research and the Scientific Publication Award to Drs Grant Herron (NSW DPI) and Lewis Wilson for their recent publication on resistance management strategies to recover insecticide susceptibility in the cotton aphid in Australian cotton. Nilantha Hulugalle, Ian Rochester (posthumously), Jim Peacock, Geoff Baker, and Stephen Allen were elected Lifetime Members of the Association in recognition of their distinguished careers in supporting Cotton Science in Australia). The Annual General Meeting of the Association was held on the final day at which a new Executive committee was elected, including Paul Grundy as the new President. Cleave Rogan (Deputy Chair, CRDC) closed off the conference noting the high international standard of the research being undertaken in Australia and the obvious renewal happening in the research space as many of our older industry stalwarts move on and new blood is attracted to the industry to fill their places, ensuring that the research base of the industry is in safe hands for the future. Details of the conference, invited speakers and abstracts are available at the AACS website. The conference was well attended and all sessions were actively participated in. All delegates that elected to give a talk were accommodated in one of the many sessions. About half the delegates went on the tour of the HPPC. This was the first time that we have used a Conference App for tablets and smart phones instead of a printed Conference booklet and this was well received by the conference delegates. There were also no physical posters displayed but the eight posters received were available through the App and on the conference website for download and were displayed on the large screen during some of the breaks. The conference was well attended and achieved its goals of fostering exchange of information and establishing and reinforcing collaborations between researchers within and across the industry. The next conference will be held in 2019 at the University of New England, Armidale.

This project seeks to create a forum which brings together all levels of the cotton industry in the Macquarie Valley and from across all geographical areas of the valley, giving a platform for an exchange of information and support and the opportunity to connect with and create new partnerships. Funding from CRDC asssits to keep the event operating at a level that makes it prestigious and valued by our members, with 165 attendees at the annual Awards dinner.

The Macquarie Valley CGA committee feels it is important for the cohesiveness of our cotton grower community to gather as many growers together as possible for this event. The energy created by the interactions on the night creates a very positive outlook for the coming season.

The grassroots funding objective for this project was to support growers in identifying pathways to incorporate summer crops as a means of improving farming system efficiencies. This research involved a comparison of dryland cotton to dryland sorghum on various row crop configurations on a property at Mungingdi.

The Resistance Management Plan (RMP) for Australian Bt cotton aims to minimise the development of resistant Helicoverpa moths. This project aims to assess if the legislated distance between pigeon pea and Bt legislated in the plan is adequate for preventing the movement of larvae between crops on commercial farms. To do this the behaviour and movement of larvae was observed. An experiment was set up to test how the movement of larvae was affected by factors such as the distance between pigeon pea and cotton (25 - 100cm), crop attractiveness (cotton either had or did not have flowers) and the presence of water. The experiments showed that larvae will move up to one metre over bare soil to reach Bt cotton. Furthermore, the likelihood of larvae reaching the cotton is increased by the presence of cotton flowers. Larvae were also observed swimming on water suggesting that this is a way in which young Helicoverpa can move within the field. This information indicates that, to improve the efficiency of the current RMP refuges should not be adjacent to Bt cotton within the same field but future work is needed to validate these laboratory findings under field conditions.

Helicoverpa armigera and Helicoverpa punctigera are destructive and adaptable pests that co-exist within the Australian cotton industry. There has been minimal research regarding how these two species interact within cotton crops to understand if one species dominants the other, or in which environment this dominance occurs. As part of the RMP, refuges are planted next to Bt cotton to produce high numbers of moths. If larval numbers are high in these refuges, then one Helicoverpa species could force out the other onto the neighbouring Bt cotton, where it would be exposed to Bt toxins. The aim of this work was to establish how H. armigera and H. punctigera competed for food, and whether in times of high density, one species was more likely to be pushed out of the pigeon pea into Bt cotton. Mixed and single species groups of 3rd to 5th instar H. armigera and H. punctigera larvae were set up on non-flowering pigeon pea or flowering non-Bt cotton refuges, and given the option of moving onto Bt cotton. H. armigera were likely to move off non- flowering pigeon pea irrespective of larval density. In mixed species groups, H. armigera and H. punctigera behaved as if they are one species complex and neither were more likely to move off the non-Bt flowering refuge. Both larvae species also seemed to be gregarious, but this needs further investigation. These results indicate that interspecific competition will not cause one species to be more exposed to Bt cotton than the other, but that there may be differences between the species in whether they will move onto Bt cotton.

The 2020 Australian Cotton Production Manual is a critical reference tool for cotton growers: a one-stop-shop of on-farm cotton production information.

This project funding supported a review of the research and development investments within its Responsible Landscape Management Theme bringing together a group of CRDC investment researchers, growers and industry.

A two day Natural Resource Management(NRM) Forum was held in May 2016.

Day one focused on Sustainability: Creating sustainable value to cotton businesses and identifying pathways to impact.

Day two: Science to impact: Future and innovation.

The forum discussed the cotton industry’s R&D needs. From input, the direction of future investments to meet future challenges to maximise impact. The outcomes from the forum were used to advise the Investment Strategy meetings and the Sustainability stakeholder Forum held in later 2016.

This travel scholarship funding enabled one researcher to attend and present at the International Tri- Conference for Precision Agriculture 2017. The primary aim of attending the Asian-Australasian Conference for Precision Agriculture (PA17) was to gain a solid foundation of the status of precision agriculture in Australia and across the globe (US, Europe, Asia). There were four particular areas of interest to the researcher, including:

1. How people are currently using spatial ‘big data’

2. Different approaches to creating ‘management zones’

3. Current approaches of predicting yield – both mechanistic (e.g. APSIM) and empirical (e.g. the approach we developed in the AgData challenge for cereal and oilseed crops)

4. The use of the various available remote sensing platforms to understand crop status and health, as well as using these data sources as an input into empirical approaches to predict yield

The conference was an opportunity to showcase the work that our Australian researchers have achieved using big data and machine learning to predict yield over large areas.

CSIRO is strategically committed to extension of research and to development of tools and techniques to support a more productive and profitable cotton farming system which also has an improved environmental performance. To ensure a high level of industry impact, CSIRO research outcomes need to be linked with campaigns that are implemented through the Cottoninfo team and supported by myBMP.

This project applied the industry knowledge and experience, research awareness, familiarity with development and delivery formats to lead numerous initiatives. Some of the key activities from this project included;

1. Leading extension campaigns to help the industry recognise the importance of IPM.

2. Ensuring that myBMP is linked and updated with the latest best practice messages from research results.

3. Validating best practice guidelines using field experiments. E.g. Pix experiments.

4. Supporting CottASSIST users.

5. Helping with the development of key industry publications. E.g. Australian Cotton Production Manual, Cotton Pest Management Guide.

6. Coordinating the Cotton Pest Management Short Course (2017/18) to train the next generation of crop consultants and farm managers in IPM practices and principles.

The CottonInfo team provides a mechanism to capture, develop, package and deliver research outcomes and foster their uptake by industry. This project made use of the strong links between the CottonInfo team and research community. It involved integrating new research appropriately to help develop a range of extension support such as publications, online decision support, extension activities and the resources behind myBMP.

The advent of Bt-cotton led to a dramatic decline in insecticide use against Helicoverpa spp. in the Australian cotton industry. Though this had significant benefits to the industry a downside was that some pest species formerly controlled by insecticides applied against Helicoverpa spp., and which were not affected by the Bt proteins, were no longer controlled. Several species have increased in significance in Bt-cotton, including the green mirid and green vegetable bug. In addition, silverleaf whitefly (SLW) has gradually achieved pest status in central and southern regions. It became a major problem in the Lower Namoi, Mungindi, and Gwydir regions in 2008-09, and has since reached pest status in cotton in other regions as well (Upper Namoi, Macquarie and Goondiwindi). In combination these emergent pests challenge the IPM systems developed for cotton because many of the control options used are detrimental to beneficial species.

This project built on a series of projects focusing on developing and enhancing integrated pest management (IPM) in cotton, especially in Bt-cotton systems. This was done by providing key information about the ecology and management of pests and beneficials and developing that information into a format suitable for use by industry. The project aimed to maintain capacity to respond to emerging pest problems (e.g. broad mites), to address key pest management challenges, such as management of mirids, GVB and SLW and maintain core entomology skills essential given the changing pest management environment (BGII and the advent of BGIII). The project also provided key support for (1) the project of Dr Grant Herron, NSW DPI (DAN197) investigating resistance to pesticides in mites and aphids (2) the project of Murray Sharman, QDAFF (DAQ1201) which had an objective to understand alternatives hosts for cotton bunchy top disease (CBT), and (3) also interacted with Dr Robert Mensah in evaluation of the efficacy and non-target effects of some novel biopesticides and semiochemicals.

This project supported the ongoing development of IPM in cotton by targeting emerging pest issues, and inappropriate management which may threaten IPM. Key outcomes were:

a. Populations of silverleaf whitefly (SLW) were maintained throughout the year on non-cultivated hosts. Key winter hosts for nymphs were sowthistle, bladder ketmia and blackberry nightshade. Sowthistle is an important indicator host of potential SLW abundance.

b. Life history studies with silverleaf whitefly showed that survival of eggs is generally between 50-80% while survival of nymphs declined from 50% in December to 10% in March. A range of SLW predators were identified.

c. System experiments for SLW management found (i) no evidence that SLW are worse on Bt-cotton than non-Bt-cotton (ii) okra leaf shape offers resistance to SLW (iii) broad-spectrum sprays led to much higher populations of SLW

d. Investigation of the fate of honeydew on bolls showed (i) breakdown by sunlight occurs slowly (ii) rainfall substantially reduces contamination (iii) a non-linear relationship was found between % honeydew removed and rainfall.

e. Green vegetable bug (GVB) abundance increased when the drought broke and there were abundant weed hosts. Parasitism by the tachinid, Trichopoda giacomellii, also increased probably reflecting higher, consistent availability of GVB as hosts

f. Sequential host use studies showed GVB prefer to feed and oviposit in legume crops such as mungbean, pigeon pea, soybean and lucerne. Some legumes may have potential to draw GVB away from cotton.

g. Results confirm that sorghum is a potential host for GVB but only during the flowering and early seed maturation period.

h. Twelve additional hosts were identified for cotton bunchy top disease (CBT) predominantly from Malvaceae, but also from the Euphorbiaceae, Lamiaceae, Fabaceae and Aizoaceae.

i. Neonicotinoid seed treatments on cotton significantly reduced transmission of CBT by neonicotinoid-susceptible aphids. Foliar applications of an aphicide were only effective at reducing primary transmission if timed just before or just after aphids colonised the crop.

j. The IPM fit of nine new compounds was evaluated. Two recently registered compounds will be added to the „Impact of insecticides and miticides on beneficials‟ table for 2014/15.

k. Information was provided to industry to assist in management of spur-throated locusts and cluster caterpillars (2010-11) and broad mites (2011-12)

l. Simone Heimoana‟s Phd thesis „The effects of aphids (Aphis gossypii) Glover on photosynthesis in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum)‟ was awarded.

m. Contributions were made to the TIMS Committee, TIMS Insecticide and Bt Technical Panels, to REFCOM and the Industry Bio-security Committee.

This project provides new information to improve management of emerging pests. Outcomes have been delivered to industry through presentations, published resources and the WWW.