Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot, Disease Research Update, Weeds, GVIA Research Project The 'Filling the Research Gap' project which is looking at nitrous oxide emissions through irrigation water at Redmill is already showing some interesting results.

This project supported a teacher and four students to attend the Cotton Conference on the Gold Coast.

The students were exposed to the latest developments in the industry thus assisting with their studies in agriculture and Primary Industries. The event also highlighted the number and variety of careers available to graduates in Agriculture particularly in the Cotton industry.

This was also a key professional development and networking opportunity for the Agriculture teacher accompanying the students to the conference. It will in turn enhance the Agriculture programs delivered at Farrer.

In an increasingly competitive labour market, the ability to retain and develop existing employees is an ongoing challenge for the Cotton Industry. With approximately 4000 employees on cotton farms, even a small shift in labour productivity and retention will have significant benefits to the industry.

A previous CRDC project (Understanding the value added by vocational training in the Cotton Industry CRC1217) identified the significant role of employers in the process of developing employee skills, particularly in the identification of training needs, and the application and re-enforcing learning post-training. While training resources have been developed by the industry and the VET sector, there has been limited uptake by employers of staff management training or by existing employees on cotton farms of formal farm production training. This project seeks to understand the motivations and barriers to developing staff management skills and capacity building of employees.

This project had three key aims:

1) To test the metrics identified in the Value of Training project in a practical context and identify opportunities for application. This included considering the impact of individual farm capital investment in machinery and use of contractors on labour metrics as well as exploring the options for linking levels of competency of specific areas of practice (planting for example) to farm productivity. This relationship between skill level and productivity has formed the basis of measuring return on investment in training in other agricultural industries.

2) To explore the strengths and limitations of the employers role in identifying skills gaps and training needs and driving the delivery of training by; harnessing the resources available on farm, through industry development programs and through the vocational training system. This will involve a process to reflect on current practice, plan improvements and practically test those changes to the current system. This aim will explore the need and options for delivery of staff management training for employers to develop the skills to improve employee skills and retain current employees.

3) To engage with industry extension and the VET sector to adapt existing training resources and delivery options to meet the identified needs of the case study reference groups. This included consideration of the practical delivery of training for employees.

The irrigation industry is facing substantial change that is likely to affect the quantity and

timing of water supply, as well as the infrastructure involved in water delivery and use.

Effective adaptation to this change while ensuring environmental sustainability requires

knowledge of the effects of irrigation practices and landscapes upon local and regional

biodiversity, and the potential implications of predicted policy, supplier and farm changes.

Here we report on a three year project conducted by CSIRO in collaboration with the

Ricegrowers Association who have been conducting an Environmental Champions Program

since 2005. This program aims to assist landholders to improve environmental and economic

returns of their farm businesses and also allows them to be recognised for their past, current

and future environmental stewardship at an industry level.

Irrigated agriculture in Australia’s Riverina consists of a variety of industries - rice, cereal,

pulse and oilseed production, as well as livestock. Rice is the dominant crop, and is reliant

on irrigation water supply from the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers, supplemented in some

cases by underground water. Riverina irrigators are currently experiencing unprecedented

restrictions on production due to water shortages. The current drought, together with the

ramifications of the NSW environmental flow legislation of 1997, has resulted in irrigators

receiving only a fraction of their water allocations. The Riverina’s irrigation industries have

significantly improved water use efficiency over the past 20 years through research and

improved irrigation layouts. Given recent climate change projections, and increasing pressure

on water supplies, the need for even more efficient use of irrigation water in the future is

certain. Options for reducing water use are being implemented or canvassed at both the

enterprise and supply scales. Examples include changes in the cropping mix at an enterprise

level, reduction or cessation of flooding of rice crops, fewer crops and more efficient water

use. At the regional scale, changes to the nature of supply channels are possible, while the

application of more efficient techniques may result in less drainage being received in regional

wetlands.

Water is as significant a resource for native plants and animals as it is for people. Before

irrigation development the Riverina was semi-arid plain, with a range of shrubland,

grassland, woodland, forest and wetland vegetation. With the advent of the Snowy River

Scheme, and the resulting establishment of the Murrumbidgee, Coleambally and Murray

Irrigation Areas, new landscapes have been created incorporating irrigation infrastructure,

intensive farming in the form of broad-acre crops and horticulture, and significantly, a large

change in the temporal availability of water. The removal of native vegetation has adversely

impacted some of the original ecosystems, but it has also created opportunities locally for

wetland species and regionally for some wetland birds. In addition, some terrestrial biota

may well benefit from the extra resources associated with irrigation waters, despite some

losses of habitat vegetation (e.g. some species of birds). Interest in biodiversity was not part

of the original irrigation development agenda, and overall impacts are not well understood.

In recent times there has been more of a focus on protecting and enhancing remaining

biodiversity through Landcare, Land and Water Management Plans and industry initiatives

such as the Rice Industry’s Biodiversity Strategy and Plan. However the concern now is that

future changes in farming and water management practices do not further compound any

impacts that have already occurred.

The overall aim of this project was to assess the possible impacts of changed irrigation

practices on native biodiversity at local and regional scales, using the irrigation districts of

the New South Wales Riverina as a case study.

Report from Conference Delegate, Dr Karen Kirby, Cotton Pathologist, NSW DPI. This scientific exchange provided the opportunity for me to travel to the Beltwide Cotton Conference in Orlando, Florida in January 2012. Attending the conference increased my knowledge of cotton diseases present and absent in Australia and the management strategies currently being used. I also gained further experience of presenting to an international audience. Being newly appointed to the position of Cotton pathologist, the opportunity to meet with leading scientists and discuss issues relating to diseases of cotton has helped to enhance my professional career and biosecurity profile. I would like to express my thnaks for assistance with travel to USA to present a paper at the Beltwide Cotton Conference. Leading experts will be attending this conference and my attendance will enhance my knowledge of cotton diseases and their control, whilst facilitating my ability to network with scientists on an international scale.

Water use efficiency (WUE) in an agricultural context can be defined as the measure of a cropping system's capacity to convert water into plant biomass, grain or other harvested output. It includes both the use of water stored in the soil and rainfall during the growing season. In simple terms WUE can be said to have increased if farm output per unit of water input increases, or if water use can be decreased while maintaining current production levels. In addition to this objective, WUE research also seeks to enable improvement in other areas of water management, such as reducing the costs of supplying water to the crop and minimising adverse environmental impacts should they exist.

Six CRDC administered individual projects over the 2011 to 2015 were first analysed qualitatively within a logical framework that considered project rationale, objectives, activities/outputs, outcomes, and impacts. Several of the impacts were then valued. Benefits were calculated for a range of time frames up to 30 years from the year of last investment. Past and future cash flows in 2015/16 $ terms were discounted to the year 2015/16 using a discount rate of 5% to estimate investment criteria.

Most the impacts identified were economic in nature, however some social and environmental impacts also were identified. Some of the cluster impacts were valued; the decision not to value certain impacts was due either to a high degree of uncertainty surrounding potential impacts, a shortage of necessary data, or the likely low relative significance of the benefit compared to those that were valued. It is expected the Australian cotton growing industry will be the primary beneficiary of the investment with only minor spill-over benefits to other cropping industries.

Travel : The Cotton Catchment Communities-CRC (CCC CRC) Science forum provided a great opportunity for me to meet other scientist involved in cotton disease research and to create collaboration much needed for my future project on cotton disease and seedling establishment. It greatly assisted researchers to interact not only with scientists from their own field of research but also with those who work on other aspects of cotton production.

Final seminar presentation of the CCC-CRC/CRDC project 1.01.55 (Linking cotton-pathogen molecular interactions and black root rot management). The seminar summary can be found in the proceedings of the CCC-CRC Science forum.

This sponsorship provided expenses to travel to America to study cotton growing and machinery use in drylands and irrigated cotton Texas region.

Results are in from the N Trial at Milo., Agro Update with Stu Doyle, Controlling Volunteers - By Geoff Hunter (Namoi), Bollgard III updates, Gwydir Grower Hall of Fame!, Herbicide Resistance Management Strategy

Project CFEO1603 was commissioned to gain an understanding of the opportunities, benefits and risks involved in emission reductions for broad acre irrigated and dryland cropping.

The eleven-month project was designed to contribute towards the completion of Objective 6 of the Carbon Farming in the Australian Cotton Industry project funded by the Carbon Farming Futures E&O Program via a grant to CRDC. Objective 6 was “Clarify to cotton industry participants the opportunities, benefits and trade-offs of participating in the ERF and/or implementing potential/sequestration options”.

Reducing emissions on farm has been hampered by a lack of technical capacity in the integration of science, practical farm management, policy context and economics. This project has filled a gap by creating economic outputs that consider all aspects of emission reduction decision making for the cotton farming system and extended the key findings to industry, government and the scientific community.