The Cotton Production Course began in 1994 and originally consisted of three units; Applied Cotton Production, Cotton Protection and Cotton and the Environment. At that time the Australian cotton industry was expanding rapidly so there was strong demand for a course that provided the principles of how to grow and protect cotton crops. There was also growing recognition that better environmental management practices were necessary to satisfy governing bodies about cotton farming, particularly in regard to pesticides. A fourth unit was added in 1999 called Australian Cotton Farming Systems and Technology Transfer™ when Australian Universities were compelled by the Federal Government to standardise the size of university units to help students move between courses at different universities, here and abroad. The agricultural certificate courses in Australia were deemed to require four units (rather than three at UNE) and be of 150 hours work each (rather than the previous 180 hours). The cotton units were redesigned to meet these requirements. This fourth unit (Systems) accepted the overflow of topics, mainly by shifting the communications workshop into the fourth unit. Important ancillary topics that related to cotton production were also added to the cotton production course over the next three years. These included understanding cotton fibre technology, cotton spinning, and how to compare the economic performance of cotton farms. Systems is also a unit that has been used to accommodate personnel development topics like team working and presentation skills. Some topics are very much about cotton production, its products and markets, others are about general attributes that we consider useful for graduates in industry. In response to student evaluations in 2008, the residential school for the Systems unit was redesigned to accommodate a full day of on-farm consultancy, rather than the previous 3 hour session. Cotton production, the environment have always been major topics in the consultancy but from 2008, there has been a strong emphasis on ˜the business of farming'™ particularly as the challenge or reduced water supply and economic downturn. Aspects of current socioeconomic impacts in rural Australia and an introduction to leadership have since been included into the units. The cotton production units attract experienced and trainee agronomists, including growers from throughout the cotton growing areas of eastern Australia. Recent drought years and declining terms of trade for cotton have led to reduced enrollments. The cotton course services the needs of trainee agronomists and trainee consultants, many completing the course immediately following their agricultural degrees. Each unit offered externally includes a residential school of three to four days duration. Internally enrolled (on-campus) students take part in a three day excursion to the Narrabri/Moree areas and/or receive a workshop at their University delivering the Applied Cotton Production material. The cotton course continues to receive very positive reviews from the industry and participants particularly about the residential schools but the size of the market demanding specific cotton production education is declining.

Sponsorship funding for the 5th Australian National Soil Judging Competition took place over three days in Toowoomba, Queensland from 26 to 28 September. Twelve teams from Australia and New Zealand’s leading universities battled it out for top honours. The motto for the competition was ‘Developing the future’ and everyone who attended would agree that the next generation of soil scientists was able to develop their soils knowledge, description and classification skills and networking prowess.

Teams were confronted with some unseasonably hot conditions, with the thermometer on competition day reaching 38oC and a stiff hot north-westerly wind. Though the students and organising staff took all of this in their stride and marched on to ensure the event was a success.

The primary aim of this project is to determine whether inexpensive Drones (UAVs) can be used to detect and define early stage VW in cotton. This scope of the project also specifies that equipment used must be easy to operate and be readily available to the farming community. To satisfy these criteria, this project used Red Green Blue (RGB) images obtained from a Phantom 3 Professional drone. Near Infrared (NIR) and multispectral analysis were outside the scope of this project.

Project requirements also specify that locations of VW affected plants must be determined.

In the last few years Australia's renewable energy sector has gone from niche to mainstream, resulting in cost reduction and a reduced need for government.

This travel sponsorship enabled one researcher to attend the 2017 Australian Energy Storage Conference to investigate the latest energy storage technology which may be applicable to irrigated cotton pumping systems, with the view to lowering energy costs.

The following highlights were reported:

a) major findings and outcomes

• Lithium-ion battery technology is becoming more affordable in some scenarios. Several case study presentations on incorporating solar/batteries into hospitals and schools revealed low payback periods and high penetration (~80%) lowering the dependence on grid technology;

• Flywheel energy storage - a potential addition to energy storage for irrigators. Flywheel provides short term energy and offers flow-on benefits through longevity of battery storage systems, which are renowned for a short (10 y) life;

• Cost of solar - the cost of solar has continued to be reduced through productivity gains. The reduction in RECs from 15 to 14 years has been mnore than offset by a reduction in panel prices; and

• Engineering contacts and providers to regional areas - I have made contacts of companies servicing cotton areas. Competition among service providers has been an issue in remote areas where cotton is grown.

• Hydrogen as an energy source - some interesting R&D going on in this space which will be investigated further in the next 3 year project term.

b) other highlights

• Hybrid vehicle technology

• Industrial storage technology - large projects in California

• Roundturn and battery storage - "energy in vs energy out" on a charge cycle for a range of different battery technologies

Cotton Tarps for Vanuatu, MyBMP Support, National Cotton Industry Awards, Young Farming Champion, Employment of Casual Staff, CottonInfo websit, Nitrogen trial, Boss Strip Till Machine Field day, Young Ag. Professionals Conference

Two workshops were organised by The Cotton Info Team to address a number of grower requests for human resource information and managing staff. Vanguard Consulting's Mark Gardner , with a depth of knowledge and experience working with agricultural businesses on strategic planning, business management and people management was engaged. Mark has been engaged as a regular trainer for the Dairy Australia HR Diploma and has a wide range of experience across agricultural industries. Meetings were held at Maules Creek and Burren Junction.

The aim of the workshops were threefold:

1.Increase capacity of growers to attract and retain staff.

2.Understanding of the legal requirements of managing staff.

3.Progress through the myBMP HR module.

CRDC undertakes an annual survey of cotton growers to gather information about farming practices and growers’ views on research, development and extension. This information helps to inform CRDC about the benefits of the research it invests in. Change in industry practice can be quantified by comparing information across the surveys conducted over the past 20 years.

Previous surveys have included a number of core annual questions and then a number of focus areas to investigate specific aspects of the farming system.

In 2017 CRDC undertook a review of the aims, purpose and design for the survey. The 2017 Grower Survey was developed by a working group including CRDC, Cotton Australia, researchers and others.

The overall survey program is guided by CRDC’s Monitoring and Evaluation Framework and supplemented by research questions relevant to the seasonal conditions. This survey gathered midterm assessment of growers’ views of CRDC’s performance against the Strategic R&D Plan 2013-18.

For the first time in 2017, CRDC has published the results of this survey in two formats: a PDF of the survey report; and an interactive online digital dashboard, available at: www.crdc.com.au/publications/growersurvey

A survey was conducted to ascertain the presence of feral cotton plants in off-farm drainage areas and along roadsides associated with cotton production and transport throughout Queensland and parts of northern NSW. The establishment of these plants is the direct result of the movement of cotton seed from overland flow associated with irrigation runoff into common drainage lines or module road freight. Perennial plants were sub-sampled to determine disease status, transgenic heritage, and pest insect presence as well as geotagged for future reference.

The overall aim of this project is to improve the ability of refuges to counter both the threat of resistance developing via genetic mutation, and the potential threat of crop failure via inducible tolerance. By accessing and countering these threats while concurrently developing better refuge management and benchmarking techniques to improve refuge governance, the ultimate aim is to avoid the cost of losing Bt cotton efficacy.

Moths of the genus Helicoverpa are the most destructive pests in Australian cotton. They have been also some of the most difficult to manage because H. armigera (in particular) has quickly developed resistance (within 5-8 years) to nearly every insecticide used in its control (Whitehouse et al. 2007). To hinder H.armigera developing resistance to Bt cotton, a Resistance Management Plan (RMP) was put in place when Bt cotton was first used commercially in Australia in 1996. As this was over 15 years ago, the RMP has been successful. Nevertheless, in light of the development of resistance to Bt cotton by H. armigera in other parts of the world (Tay et al. 2013) it is important to remain vigilant and keep testing the tools used in the RMP.

A key tool of the RMP is the use of refuges. Refuges help maintain the potency of Bt cotton by producing unselected Helicoverpa moths that mate with any resistant moths emerging from the Bt crop, thereby diluting their genetic contribution to the next generation and slowing the development of resistance.

Refuge governance is based on models with assumptions that are difficult to test on farms. The Helicoverpa Genome Project has mapped all of Helicoverpa’s genes, making it easier to test two assumptions on the frequency of resistant (R) and susceptible (S) genes, and on the degree to which moths mix both within valleys and between Bt cotton and its refuges. If these assumptions are incorrect, then refuges may be underperforming.

Although refuges are designed to counter Bt resistance developing from genetic mutations, a recent CRDC project (03UA002) showed that under laboratory conditions, the exposure of Helicoverpa to low, non-lethal doses of Bt toxins over 12 generations can cause H.armigera to develop inducible tolerance to Bt toxins, to the extent that they are not killed by levels of Bt toxin fatal to susceptible H.armigera. As stressed Bt cotton plants may produce less toxin, and some parts of the plant produce low levels of toxin, inducible tolerance could be another pathway by which Helicoverpa could survive on Bt cotton. An aim of this project is to test the likelihood that inducible tolerance could occur in field crops of Bt cotton, and if so, if refuges could reduce that risk.

For refuges to counter genetic resistance and inducible tolerance to Bt toxins, they must be working optimally on farms and produce as many moths as possible. To do so refuges need to attract sufficient egglays, and then support as many of the resulting Helicoverpa larvae as possible until maturity. For many growers it isn’t clear if their refuges are countering the development of resistance; how to improve the productivity of their refuges; or how to measure the effectiveness of their refuges in order to improve efficacy. Monitoring refuge productivity is a challenge, with current reporting often at odds with on farm realities. A remote method of checking refuges could be used to identify refuges facing difficulties, which could be then ground-truthed. The ultimate aim of this work is to incorporate best management practises into myBMP to improve refuge governance and also to develop better monitoring techniques to identify under-performing refuges which may need more assistance.

Barbara Grey is an irrigated cotton farmer from Mungindi, in SW Qld, and the 2011 Rural Women’s Award Winner for Qld, and National Runner-up. The report outlines the results of the Rural Women’s Award project developed and delivered by Barbara.

The Report is of relevance to those organisations who have a vested interest in the capacity building of regional, rural and remote women, and in particular with regard to improving their understanding of, and interaction with, the political system.

People in regional, rural and remote areas often feel disconnected from and disconcerted with, those in Canberra who make the decisions that affect our livelihood and quality of life. The pilot educational work-shop, ‘Women Affecting Change’ (WAC), was developed to target women of regional/rural Australia who are in a position to affect change in their community or industry. The overall aim of WAC was to strengthen and develop the capacity of these women to influence and affect change, through an increased understanding of the political system and other national processes. The project embraced participants from across Australia, from each state and territory, and from a diverse cross-section of industries and communities. For example, agriculture, health, education, sport, small business, and not-for-profit

The key objectives:

o Raise awareness of the political system

o Developing their knowledge of how to engage media, policy makers, government agencies, and

politicians

o Networking women who are developing leadership roles in rural, remote and regional Australia o Developing their capacity to articulate their objectives and understand the barriers to change The project involved development and implementation of the pilot educational workshop, delivered in Canberra during sitting week, October 2011.

Workshop results exceeded expectations. The high calibre and diverse cross-section of women participants was impressive, and the women eagerly seized the opportunity to connect, contribute, network, and share their community/industry stories. Participants indicated they hoped WAC would not be a one-off event, and expressed the need for the provision of similar workshops on a regular, on-going basis.

The WAC workshop delivered a clear message, that is, rural/regional/remote residents have much to gain from being politically astute, to being well-informed about the process, and to thereby engage constructively and proactively in the political debate. Ongoing support for the delivery of educational workshops that provide an increased understanding of the political system and associated agents, for regional, rural and remote women from across Australia, during parliament’s sitting week in Canberra is highly recommended.