Report from the Administration Officer, MCGA: I have recently taken up the reins of Macquarie Cotton Growers Association and, besides being on a steep learning curve, I am also following up on a few loose ends, one of which was the CRDC funding for the past funding period.

After a conversation with Sally Hunter yesterday, it has transpired that we have not invoiced the CRDC for the grant money that had been made available in 2011.

The application form that was submitted by MCGA outlines the benefits that our two projects would bring to our local cotton growing community. One of the projects, the Barefoot Bowls Day, was postponed, and instead a Field Day was held. This was supported by a group of growers and refreshments, lunch and a bus were provided by MCGA.

In addition a BBQ trailer was built with the help of some funding from DFACS. It is a very well designed setup and has been getting regular use through the local communities in the Lower Macquarie. We are providing it free of charge for not-for-profit organisations and will charge a user fee for larger companies or private use.

There have been additional costs with the BBQ trailer which include tyres, registration and proposed sign writing, which has been made possible with CRDC funding. Substantial in-kind input has been made by MCGA committee members in regard to the designing and administration of the building and management of the trailer.

Once the trailer undergoes sign writing, it will be a very visual advertisement for Macquarie Cotton Growers Association, as well as creating a sense of support by cotton growers within the communities.

The other significant outlay was the decision to have Rachael Robertson as the keynote speaker at our annual Grower Awards night. As outlined in the funding proposal, this was a great drawcard for the night, and has resulted in very positive feedback from our grower community.

The committee of MCGA feels that these funded projects have impacted very favourably with both the growers and the wider community. The BBQ trailer has raised the profile of the association in the community and is a very positive outcome. Field days are an integral part of supporting our growers and create enthusiasm and networking. Having a keynote speaker makes our awards night a more significant event and encourages our membership to socialise and celebrate.

I have emailed an invoice for $8,000 which was first raised in November 2011, and have also sent a second invoice for $2000, being the balance of the funding grant that was offered. As I am sending them direct from Phoenix, they will be separate from this email.

Macquarie Cotton Growers Association would like to thank the CRDC for making this funding available as it enables our committee to support our members and our community to a level that otherwise would not be possible.

In response to the APVMA regulatory review of diuron, this project was initiated in response for two main purposes. Firstly, to show that that cotton industry has the technology the effectively manage chemical residues in BMP cotton systems and secondly to provide an assessment of the ecological risk from diuron and atrazine in the Namoi and Emerald cotton catchments.

The project used QuickTests, rapid analytical technology, to analyse 456 samples over a four month period. Ten per cent of samples were sent to an analytical laboratory for instrumental analysis. This rapid analytical technology, develop recently through a Cotton CRC project, enables superior environmental management to support the cotton eco-brand. Not only can analysis be undertaken on site, giving immediate feedback for management, a lot more data is made available as the costs are about 10-20% of contemporary instrumental methods. Following the principles of ecological risk assessment this project showed that the concentrations of diuron and atrazine detected in the Namoi and Emerald catchments did not pose ecological concern based on the assessment endpoints adopted for this agricultural region (90% of ecological species protected 90% of the time).

This project provides the framework for rapid analytical technology to be included in catchment management and BMP systems. Until now, the costs of analysis have been prohibitive. The technology and systems are available to support good practice of effective pesticides for the industry against increasing regulatory pressure.

Following extensive discussions since 2010, CRDC agreed to provide seed funding for a Centre for Biopesticides and Semiochemicals, to be developed by researchers from NSW Department of Primary Industry(DPI), the University of Western Sydney, and the University of New England. The aim of the Centre was to conduct basic research to identify new biopesticide and semiochemical solutions for use in integrated pest management in a range of Australian cropping systems, and to facilitate the commercial development of products based on these discoveries. It was anticipated that additional funding would be sourced from other rural R & D corporations and commercial partners in the future. However, limited funding from GRDC and other research bodies resulted in limited outcomes and aims being achieved.

Research focused on pheromones which might be used for monitoring, in early warning systems. Target pests were selected because existing monitoring and control methods were not adequate, and current GM technology did not provide management options. The targets are green mirids (Creontiades dilutus), affecting cotton and to a lesser extent grain legumes and the cotton leafworm or cluster caterpillar (Spodoptera litura), affecting cotton, vegetables and grain legumes.

In 2010, CRDC received a PRP from the Primary Industries Education Foundation (PIEF) to consider an investment. Encouraged by Cotton Australia, CRDC invited PIEF to submit a FRP which was considered at CRDC’s budget meeting in March 2011. The board did not support the request for CRDC to become a member of PIEF for a 3 year period. Instead, the board placed sufficient funds in the commissioned project budget to cover a possible 12 month investment in PIEF provided a satisfactory cooperative arrangement could be established with Cotton Australia. CRDC discussed the option to establish a 12 month project with PIEF’s CEO Ben Stockwin and received an offer to become a PIEF member for 12 months.

CRDC determined to co-invest with Cotton Australia in PIEF. Initially CRDC invested for a 12 month ‘pilot’ to assist the industry to become a member of PIEF and to work with CA to assess the value of PIEF membership. At the commencement of the arrangement, CA and CRDC outlined the potential value that we saw, and how we planned to use PIEF. A number of proposed outcomes were agreed upon which were to:

1. Highlight, prioritise and plan our involvement in relevant initiatives and events, e.g. through identifying effective education efforts in other industries, effective mechanisms and approaches and potential partnerships that could be developed

2. Identify, develop and promote resources in schools that highlight many key aspects of the cotton industry and demonstrate that there are many exciting careers to be found within it.

3. Work more collaboratively and cost-effectively with other rural industries to showcase agriculture as a sustainable sector with excellent career opportunities.

4. Show that the work of PIEF is having an impact on students as measured by an improved knowledge of primary industries in general and the cotton industry in particular.

5. Provide evidence that interest in and entries into the VET and tertiary courses which support agriculture is increasing over time.

6. Understand the kinds of resources that other industries have developed through their membership with PIEF and how they are being used.

7. Demonstrate that PIEF will provide value for money compared to other options the industry has for investment in the education sector in other words how the cotton industry can innovatively build upon the access PIEF provides to the National Curriculum?

Beyond the initial 12 months, provided both parties agree that PIEF is a worthwhile investment, CRDC indicated that it was prepared to consider ongoing co-investment in PIEF with CA.

On the one year anniversary of PIEF membership, Ben Stockwin , met with the Human Capacity Panel when they met to review 2012 PRPs. Their reception of PIEF was markedly different as PIEF can now better explain its role in the education space and has moved from talking about aspirations to delivering outcomes. The Advisory Panel acknowledged that they had turned this concept away last time, with the rationale being that PIEF needed to show that it delivered for cotton. This time, the panel was vocal in its support for PIEF. They saw value in what PIEF are doing with their core funding and recognised the potential in using PIEF to deliver on areas of need in cotton (e.g. commissioning specific projects through future PRPs). They were supportive of PIEF’s business model of operating leanly, committing to core objectives and seeking funding for project based work.

After the first year of membership we have revisited the envisaged outcomes in considering the value of PIEF for the cotton industry and consider PIEF to be delivering on the outcomes on the whole and providing a range of unanticipated benefits. This report is structured around the outcomes for the cotton industry agreed prior to undertaking PIEF membership.

On New Year's Day 2011, the peak of the Cornet River flood in Central Queensland

broke long standing record levels. The alluvial lower floodplain of the Comet River is

arguably some of the more fertile and productive soil in the region, with a significant

percentage of this land being developed for irrigated farming and cotton production.

Once the flooding had occurred, the region found itself in a position of having to try and

find a way forward from this natural disaster. With cotton prices being at record levels

and most farm businesses having forward-sold commitments, the most likely profitable

avenue was to attempt to continue with the current cotton crop through to the Grid of the season. With no information on how cotton would recover from such an event available,

any management decision came with the Grid result being uncertain.

Case studies were developed in consultation with growers, researchers and advisors to

study a range of post-flood management options. The treatments were developed based

on the state of the crop after the flood and the crop recovery immediately after the event. The case studies monitored were as follows:

1. Crop retained most leaf matter however all fruit was lost, crop left untreated

2. Crop retained no fruit or leaf material, slashing was the first point of recovery

3. Crop was uneven in survival, uniformity was induced by "tipping" the crop 4. Crop retained ino fruit or leafmatter and was left untreated

5. Crop totally destroyed and paddockwas re-planted to conventional cotton

Objective of the visit 1. To attend the 21st International Congress of Entomology Conference and present a paper on beneficial insects conservation and development of IPM in cotton in Australia. 2. To interact and have discussion with scientists working in the same area of research to gain further knowledge in the area of beneficial insect conservation and IPM.

The successful SOILpak concept was developed in 1986, but the most recent version of the manual (‘SOILpak for Cotton Growers: Third edition’, 1998, and the accompanying Pocket Notes) is now eighteen years old. Valuable ideas for updating SOILpak were presented in the reviews by Shaw (2005) and EA Systems (2006) approximately ten years ago.

Other soil-related PAKS developed by the Australian cotton industry also remain important but some sections are out of date; they include NUTRIpak, WATERpak, MACHINEpak and NORpak.

Precision Agriculture techniques associated with soil management are very valuable – particularly yield mapping and elevation data – but there has been an over-dependence on EM surveys, and a lack of attention given to ‘yield gap’ mapping.

There are several problems with SOILpak that need to be addressed:

• Machinery wheel pattern descriptions are outdated; there is no mention of the new and heavy JD7760 pickers and high capacity wheat harvesters that have the potential to create much deeper compaction than previous harvesting equipment.

• SOILpak sampling depths are compatible with modern schemes such as GlobalSoilMap, but are not well integrated with NUTRIpak and WATERpak – consistency is required.

• SOILpak and associated decision support systems collectively are not “Big Data” ready; cotton soil data across the different valleys tend not to be in a format that can be clearly tabulated and mapped.

• The planned technical updating process for SOILpak as new research results became available did not occur.

• The case study section with cost-benefit analyses was never developed properly, despite the introduction of excellent new software technologies such as Wikis and easy video delivery via the Internet.

• The soil structure assessment section requires refinement/clarification through the use of modern communication and diagnostic t

The report contains an extensive list of (mainly technical) suggestions for upgrading SOILpak, which will inform the proposed revised approach of providing detailed technical information to growers and the industry, focused on 1) using the Australian Cotton Production Manual as the ‘centre piece’ source of information, supported by 2) more detailed fact sheets and 3) regular scientific reviews. The review of SOILpak provides a good case study in the streamlining opportunities this proposed revised approach provides: it highlighted that there are soil sampling guidelines in SOILpak, NUTRIpak and WATERpak, which were not completely consistent. A ‘fact sheet’ approach (that would also support myBMP) would allow for the production of a single source of truth regarding soil sampling, reducing duplication and eliminating inconsistency and the potential for confusion.

The cotton industry is rapidly expanding in southern NSW. The purchase of a cotton trial picker will significantly enhance the ability of NSW DPI Plant Systems Branch, and other research organisations, to deliver accurate results from existing cotton research projects in the southern connected systems. There is no other equipment of this type available in southern NSW, and equipment that is available across the broader industry is fully committed with no opportunity to share with the owners of the equipment.

This equipment will allow greater scientific rigour to current research trials and eliminates the risk of compromised experimental results that arise as a result of the current need for hand picking of cotton trials. Hand picking leads to reduced ability to measure treatment impacts and less confidence in research outcomes. The ultimate impact of this is a lower industry confidence in, and adoption of, best management practice identified within research, and reduced potential for farmers to realise productivity and profitability outcomes.

This project will assist the cotton industry to reduce its impact upon the environment and improve the health of its soil resource and achieve its aims to use fertiliser inputs more efficiently.

Soil health benefits will be measured within the cropping systems experiment. A greater emphasis will be placed on biological aspects than in the past, especially in regard to remediating the subsoil. Soil physical and chemical fertility will continue to be monitored.

Changes in Soil C will be measured regularly in the cropping systems experiment to identify best management practices. This will include identifying better stubble management practices. The project aims to demonstrate that simple changes in management can improve soil C status that can balance eCO2 emissions from cotton production.

N use-efficiency will be further calibrated in N fertiliser rate experiments annually. With assistance from CRC adoption program, this project will extend the use cottonseed N analysis to assess NUE industry-wide that will provide feedback to growers about their use of N fertiliser in a field basis. This will help minimise fertiliser-derived nitrous oxide emissions from cotton crops. Better management practices will be developed to ensure GHG emissions are reduced by using data derived in the associated GHG project that will measure emissions of N2O and CO2.

Other nutrients: The NutriLOGIC program will be upgraded with more definitive guidelines for all nutrients including N. This will provide more effective guidelines to restore / maintain soil chemical fertility and avoid crop nutrient deficiencies. The use-efficiency of other nutrients (especially P and K) will also be assessed.

Soil Carbon status and stubble management:

Soil organic C (SOC) is reportedly declining in most cropping soils. Within the cotton cropping systems experiment at Narrabri, SOC has increased substantially, especially in the legume-based systems, and particularly in the subsoil. SOC increases of this magnitude are sufficient to offset the C emissions associated with cotton production. Soil C content is strongly related to how crop stubble is managed; incorporating stubble enables stubble-C to be assimilated within the soil microbial biomass compared with retaining stubble at the surface as most stubble-C is lost to the atmosphere. Increasing soil C is highly beneficial to crop production, soil health and the environment and is essential for consistently producing high-yielding cotton.

Efficient use of Nitrogen fertilisers:

Cotton NUE has declined across the industry in recent years due to excessive N fertiliser use. Several measures of NUE have been defined and correlated with the economic optimum rates of N fertiliser application derived from N fertiliser rate experiments at ACRI. One new measure of NUE analyses fuzzy seed for its N content at the gin, another assesses NUE using lint yield and N fertiliser application rate. All are capable of identifying where excessive amounts of N fertiliser have been used. Adopting these tools will help the industry use N fertiliser more effectively and reduce GHG emissions.

Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG):

Previous studies have shown substantial emissions of GHG’s, especially where high rates of N fertilisers are used and in irrigated systems which exacerbate the problem. Nitrous oxide (N2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) are being measured in the cotton-based cropping systems experiment. This is providing insight into better management practices (i.e. optimising N fertiliser inputs and managing stubble better) to minimise GHG emissions.

Benefits of legume cropping on soil health:

Apart from improved soil N status, legume cropping improves soil structure, increases soil organic C status and promotes a more active and dynamic soil microbial biomass and enhances nutrient availability. Importantly, the amounts of water extracted from the legume-based systems has increased, which is closely correlated with higher-yielding systems. The cropping systems experiments at ACRI have shown changes in soil health parameters, particularly in the subsoil. Including legume crops in the systems benefits soil health in several ways, not just with N inputs, but by also improving soil water storage and extraction, soil structural improvement, and builds resilience into the soil system to provide for better crops.

Nutrient Management:

The NutriLOGIC DSS helps managers determine appropriate fertiliser management strategies based on soil and crop tissue analyses. It provides information on all nutrients and links to NUTRIpak. NutriLOGIC is regularly updated to ensure that the critical nutrient levels embedded in NutriLOGIC are appropriate for high-yielding cotton. The soil N section of NutriLOGIC is currently being revised in a way that will facilitate future revisions. This ensures the most recent high-yielding crops are included in the nutrient recommendation calibrations. It is important that cotton growers and consultants have access to a facility that interprets soil and crop tissue nutrient analyses and recommends fertiliser applications independently of fertiliser resellers and manufacturers.

This research project has identified cotton cropping systems that use inputs of fertiliser resources and energy efficiently, conserve soil carbon, produce low GHG emissions, and yet are highly productive and profitable. The health of these soils will continue to improve with the management systems employed and this will enable cotton productivity to increase in the future.

Poor crop establishment compromises productivity and may necessitate the expense of replanting.This project has demonstrated that thin biodegradable film may have a place in the cotton production system; soil temperature is elevated and seedbed moisture is conserved, which results in earlier and uniform emergence compared with bare soil under the same conditions. A limitation to this point has been timely access to thin film to enable an early planting date and the inability of emerging cotton to penetrate the thin film. After discussion with one manufacturer agreement has been reached to slot the film over the plant line which should allow the crop to emerge. This concept has yet to be tested; field trials will be conducted in central Queensland during the 2013/2014 season. Further planting date experiments are planned for southern NSW and at ACRI using slotted film to determine whether the perceived benefit of using thin film is real and whether or not early planted cotton will survive subsequent cold shock or frost.

In cool regions, production can be limited by the need to replant due to prolonged cold conditions. New biodegradable thin films provide an opportunity to overcome this limitation without the risk of contaminating lint at harvest. The concept is to plant cotton and apply film in one pass, with the film degrading as cotton emerges so the crop grows as if planted with no film. Preliminary results suggest the films enhance early establishment however, the film used did not breakdown as expected. Pilot studies undertaken in the Namoi Valley have demonstrated that thin film promoted early and uniform crop emergence by increasing soil temperature and retaining seedbed moisture compared to bare soil. Following emergence cotton was not able to penetrate the film due to excessive temperatures under the film, therefore crop growth and yield benefits have not been determined.