The concept of the Network Development Officer (NDO) role came about following an Upper Namoi CGA bus trip around 2 1/2 years ago, which identified the need for better research information flow to growers, and the sharing of information regarding the growing of cotton and grains between the more and less experienced growers of each crop. Through grass roots grants funding to the UNCGA and contributions by AgVance Farming, the role was formed in a trial capacity with a partnership between the two groups in April 2012.

The original funding for the role took the NDO position until the end of September 2012. Following the success of the role in the first 6 months, a PRP (extending from June 2013 on wards) was lodged. The funding relevant to this report bridged the gap between these two projects – allowing the NDO role to continue.

Dryland Pix trial * Reniform Nematode * N trial * Central Queensland Field Walk
*Update from Philip Armytage Darwin Trip

This travel sponsorship supported the ACRI visit of Dr Naranjo, who whilst visiting Australia in late November 2016 to attend the annual conference of the Australian Entomological Society. CRDC and CSIRO have supported Steve Naranjo, USDA to visit and support review of recent research. Dr Naranjo is an internationally recognised expert in IPM in cotton systems. In particular, he has extensive skills in research and management of silver leaf whitefly and was one of the architects of the approach used to manage this pest in Arizona. He has been instrumental in assisting that production system to develop an effective management system that has restored Arizona’s reputation for producing non-sticky cotton. Dr Naranjo co-authored with Dr Richard Sequeira a publication which used extensive whitefly distribution data to arrive at a scientifically valid sampling protocol, the basis for the system used in Australia.

Silverleaf whitefly has been identified as a high priority issue for the Australian cotton industry. The aim of this meeting was to review current SLW research as well as experiences with monitoring and management practices to inform R&D direction and prioritise extension messages for SLW.

Multi- species cover cropping trial * Management Options Enhancing Beneficial Microbial Communities and Functions in Cotton Soils- Dr Gupta Vadakattu. * N trial summary *Macquarie Valley

Despite the increased adoption of pressurised irrigation systems in recent years, furrow irrigation is and will remain to be the dominant application technique in the Australian cotton industry in the foreseeable future. Furrow irrigation involves relatively low capital investment making it ideally suited to the opportunistic nature of cotton production where the area planted varies from season to season depending on commodity prices and water availability.

The Australian Cotton industry can stake the claim of being one of the leaders in irrigation practice and innovation. Nowhere is this more apparent than for surface irrigation where the industry has made significant gains in water management leading to direct increases in productivity. One key driver of this change is the ability to monitor and model furrow irrigation provided through the use of the Irrimate™ in field evaluation system. Over the past decade, hundreds of evaluations have been performed in order to guide individual growers and inform researchers. The resulting data resides in the archives of each of the parent government institutions and consulting firms. The data recording and reporting processes are inconsistent between organisations and often also between individuals. Consequently it has been difficult to perform industry wide benchmarking of water use management.

Each organisation has adopted unique ways of analysing, and archiving field data, resulting in large quantities of data with limited hope being able to conduct industry wide studies. The Cotton Catchment Communities CRC and National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture (NCEA) have developed a web database, the Irrimate Surface Irrigation Database (ISID) with the following aims:

1. To allow the industry to benchmark the performance and potential performance of furrow irrigation

2. To provide added value to the process of irrigation evaluation where growers will be able to compare practices with others

3. To collate the large quantity of field measurements and evaluations that have been conducted over the past decade, a valuable source of information for future research in irrigation management.

Once completed, ISID was populated with data collected from all major catchments across NSW and QLD where cotton is grown with measurements stretching from the 1998-1999 to the 2011-2012 seasons. In excess of 630 separate irrigation events have been collated to date each with full field measurements, performance estimates and optimisation strategies.

The data capture and transfer process has been streamlined by integration of the database into the software model SISCO used during the evaluation process. This will ensure that the database is maintained and updated into the future. ISID also functions as a means to standardise and archive evaluations, a major shortcoming identified during collation of historical data.

Preliminary results from the database indicate that measured application efficiency across all seasons and districts is approximately 64.6% or 76.1% when accounting for tail water recycling. Optimisation of inflow rates and cut off times to improve irrigation performance results in an average water saving of 0.155 ML/ha per event. The design of ISID also enables users to interrogate the database in order to summarise the results according to criteria such as catchment, season, soil type and field length adding further value to the benchmarking process.

While individually the evaluations have been useful to growers, combined these results provide a valuable resource to the industry as a whole. The previous project failed to capture datasets across the industry due to (i) the limited amount of time available and (ii) the time required for manual data preparation and entry.

The Fifth World Cotton Research Conference(WCRC) is held annually and in 2012 dealt with a wide range of issues concerning the cotton industry, from seed production, plant growing and the farm to fibre quality,

cotton processing and the textile industry. The opening sessions dealt with

new directions in cotton production research, blending biotechnology, research, blending biotechnology, breeding, GM crops (in particular in India),

the textile chain and chemical processing of cotton. The two closing sessions

dealt with an international cotton genome initiative for cotton improvement

and with cotton mechanisation.

Nine leading Australian Scientists travelled to the 5th WCRC in Mumbai, India to present their research work, chair sessions or particpate in the conference as delegates.

these scientists included:

Dr Ivan Kennedy, Dr Daniel Tan of the University of Sydney, Rene van der Sluijs from CSIRO Material Science and Engineering, Dr Lily Pereg of the University of New England, Steven Yeates, Nicola Cottee from CSIRO Plant Industry, Tom Walsh CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Francois Visser from the University of Queensland and Katie Broughton, Post docturate Student of the University of Sydney and CSIRO Plant Industry. For detail, see individual Final Reports.

Dryland Cotton * Around the Traps *Trials - irrigation efficiency * CQ Update

Dryland Cotton. *Around the Traps. *The Big Day Out- Energy Efficiency *CQ Update *Welshy's

Dryland Cotton * BG III and Verticillium *Managing Carbon in a Cotton based Farming System *GRDC Update *If you suspect earwigs or wireworms

Technological innovations in the cotton industry are advancing mechanisation and seeking to create improved efficiencies of labour and energy inputs. These innovations are often adopted rapidly without specific knowledge to support the adoption. That is to say, innovations are often adopted on the face value of a proclaimed efficiency. Thus, the farming system impact of these innovations is not well understood in the majority of cases. While the cotton industry has developed and endeavours to use best management practices (BMP) for farming system components (including soils and water), an impact assessment framework for evaluating the impacts of these new technologies on the whole farming system does not exist. The rapid adoption of the round bale (RB) picker presents an opportunity to investigate the specific effects of this new technology, and in doing so, inform development of an impact assessment framework applicable to other technological innovations for cotton.

Of particular concern is the potential for delayed impact of RB pickers on sustainable management and production, particularly from a soils perspective. These machines are designed to provide energy/labour efficiencies (the current driving force), but impacts such as increased compaction resulting in increased soil-bed preparation costs may emerge in subsequent seasons. The major impact of machinery on the soil is compaction, and not surprisingly ‘SOILpak For Cotton Growers’ declares compaction as a yield limiting factor in cotton production. Compaction has historically been managed through various techniques, such as controlled traffic farming (CTF) and minimum tillage. In the case of the RB picking system, these machines eliminate the need for the boll buggy by preparing round bales on-the-go, but the trade off is an increase in total machine weight. This raises concerns of increased soil compaction, especially under moist soil conditions generally experienced in irrigated fields, or during wet cotton seasons. The ability of the soil to carry the increased weight under marginal traction conditions may narrow the harvest windows. Furthermore, given the adoption rate, it is unlikely that optimisation of machine performance within individual farming systems has occurred. The potential to provide further impact offset capability is real and should be optimised. The question is then raised: “Is this machine being utilised optimally and do the economic efficiencies offset potential field impacts?”

As the uptake of the RB picking system has been widespread and rapid, it is not a matter of whether or not the industry should adopt this technology, rather a process of determining its impacts, evaluating impacts against previous harvesting systems, and developing strategies to optimise operating performance. By engaging the industry in discussion and reviewing current information on harvesting system implementation and performance, this project seeks to determine a series of indicators that can be measured in-field to assess field impacts and machine performance. In doing so, the basis of an impact assessment framework will be constructed and refined over several cotton seasons of in-field monitoring of RB picking systems.