Within the national framework for biosecurity, all commonwealth and state governments and plant industries who are signatories to the Emergency Plant Pest Response Deed (EPPRD) formally committ to preparations that include: surveillance for key biosecurity risks, a chain of command for reporting suspected incursions, decision making processes for responding to confirmed incursions and industry recovery from confirmed incursions. Cotton Australia is the cotton industry representative and signatory to the EPPRD and underwent 'biosecurity training' instigated by the State government. The industry needed to do the same, creating a network of human capacity at the grass roots of the industry- growers and their RDO's, consultants and Cotton Australia Regional Managers - that are aware of the role they may play in an incursion event. The thinking and decisions taken early in the event may be critical in determining the feasibility of an eradication response.

This project undertook to raise grower and consultant awareness and knowledge of the processes that will occur in the event that a cotton biosecurity incursion is confirmed. Biosecurity awareness training was delivered to 30 participants from key industry groups over three years. Participants included growers, consultants, CottonInfo RDOs, Cotton Australia Regional Managers, CRDC and Cotton Australia Program Managers. Presenters were from eight key stakeholder organisations in biosecurity; Australian Department of Agriculture, Plant Health Australia, NSW DPI, QLD DAFF, CRDC, CSIRO, Cotton Australia, and a Grains Biosecurity Officer. The workshops incorporated a site visit to the Australian Department of Agriculture Central-East Region quarantine and inspection facility, Roseberry, NSW. The in-kind participation from stakeholders and provision of meeting and inspection facilties by the Australian Department of Agriculture and Cotton Australia was a significant contribution to the project.

Irrigated cotton production in Australia is predominately (80%) based on furrow irrigation. Although significant improvements in furrow irrigation efficiency have been achieved over the last decade the inability to reduce run-times, due largely to (increasing) labour force constraints, has restricted potential gains. The principal focus of the Optimizing water and energy use in the CQ Irrigation Sector project will be the conduct of field trialling in the CQ region to contribute to development of techniques that will increase ability to automate furrow irrigation.

In addition the project will continue the focus of the recently terminated Central Highlands and Dawson-Callide irrigation districts RWUE 4 project i.e. provision of assistance to the irrigation sector to adapt to increased variability and energy costs likely to result from climate change and associated policy responses. Performance evaluations of pumping systems, a major component of irrigation energy use in many irrigation enterprises, and of furrow and overhead irrigation systems (particularly CPLM) will be conducted. Data from these will contribute to the development and promotion of industry benchmarks that are critical for achievement of future industry efficiency gains.

The project will also provide support for the increased uptake of myBMP, technical assistance to Fitzroy Basin Association where required, and promotion of awareness of tools and resources designed to assist achievement of increased efficiencies (e.g. CropWaterUse, WaterSched2, and the revised WATERpak).

Since 1999-2000 the Queensland Government has funded four Rural Water Use Efficiency programs across Queensland. These projects have primarily focussed on improving water use efficiency within the Cotton and Grains industries of Queensland. These projects resulted in significant improvements in the efficiency of irrigation within these industries. In the most recent project – RWUE4 – the focus has been on the assessment of the irrigation performance of centre pivot and lateral move machines in Central Queensland, and the development of the Growers Guide to Centre Pivots and Lateral Move DVDs.

The principal proposed focus (40%) for this project is to examine potential methodology for automation of furrow irrigation. In addition the project will continue to assist those within the irrigation sector to improve their water and energy efficiencies. Energy inputs represent a major and rapidly increasing cost to growers. On-farm energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important in the context of rising energy costs and concerns over greenhouse gas emissions. Pumping costs constitute a major component of irrigation system energy use.

Increased flexibility associated with automation of furrow irrigation (40% of the projects activities) has potential to play a critical role in enabling irrigators to adopt more precise scheduling methodology than currently possible with the predominate industry irrigation practise of manually set furrow syphons. In addition, automation could assist with the increasing difficulty faced by irrigators in sourcing labour.

The project provided valuable information regarding optimum downfield placement of the advance / depth sensor(s), and resolved a number of identified practical issues relating to placement and operation of sensors. This facilitates progression with evaluation trialling to be conducted in the current CRDC funded project. Interim analysis has provided encouraging results. suggesting a strong correlation between AutoSISCO predicted cut-off time (using a single advance point), and their associated outcomes in relation to irrigation efficiencies. As a result of the collaborative basis of the automation research (NCEA CRDC

project) many of the problems that are often associated with initial trialling were avoided. This was of great value in providing cost effective outcomes and progressing future research in an efficient manner.

Pumping constitutes a major energy cost in most irrigation systems. Previous evaluations have indicated the potential for significant improvements in many systems. Pumping system efficiency evaluations conducted by the project enabled comparison of measured performance to the theoretical best operating point (as identified on relevant efficiency curve graphs), and comparison of performance against an industry benchmark (using 5 kWhr/ML/m head). Where systems were identified as performing outside their optimum range, or at variance to the benchmark, growers were better equipped to make cost benefit analysis of options for improvement.

Historically performance evaluations results have indicated that many overhead irrigation systems were falling short of their expected performance efficiencies. In many cases, once identified, factors impeding efficient operation have been redressed via relatively inexpensive modifications. Evaluations conducted by the project provided valuable assistance in identifying the source of any problem and thus equipped the grower with information that could be used to rectify issues of poor performance.

The project continued working closely with the local irrigators and the community in general providing resources pertaining to water use and energy use efficiency. This has facilitated an enhanced awareness of industry wide efforts and has equipped the local growers with the options to improve the viability of their operations.

The recently funded CRDC project, now underway, will sustain this projects impetus by continuing to assist local irrigators address the challenges inherent in maintaining sustainable cotton production in the face of a changing environment.

Each year, Crop Consultants Australia - with support from CRDC - conduct a qualitative survey of cotton consultants regarding their practices and attitudes, as well as those of their cotton grower clients. The resulting report provides valuable information to the Australian cotton industry regarding on-farm practices , helping to benchmark the industry's performance in a range of key areas over time. This report, published in February 2016, looks at the 2014-15 cotton growing season.

Since the introduction of Bt-cotton secondary pests such as aphids, mites and bugs have become more prominent requiring targeted insecticide control. These sprays have lead to resistance in some pest species that have caused the chemical control to fail. Spray failures increase grower costs and the likely hood of unforseen environmental consequences but very importantly can permanently tarnish Australia’s reputation for producing high quality lint if 2

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failures cause ‘sticky cotton’. Recently in Australian cotton, there has been control failure against aphids with chemicals belonging to the group known as neonicotinoids. This group includes the mainstay cotton seed treatment thiamethoxam (Cruiser®) and the cost effective foliar spray clothianidin (Shield®). The neonicotinoid insecticides control several problematic pest species in cotton including aphids and mirids and their loss due to resistance puts increased pressure on remaining control products by severely limiting control options. In the 2007-2008 cotton season neonicotinoid resistance was detected for the first time in cotton aphid but control failures were not experienced. During the following 2008-2009 season neonicotinoid resistance increased in both level and abundance (82% of the stains tested) and for the first time neonicotinoid resistance caused control failures and cross resistance to other neonicotinoid products was additionally implicated. Interestingly, the proportion of strains showing neonicotinoid resistance in 2009-2010 remained approximately static at 78% but for season 2010-2011 the frequency of strains showing resistance increased to an extreme 96% of strains tested. Such resistance makes the neonicotinoids unreliable for cotton aphid control and growers may well be better off using alternative foliar products for aphid control if neonicotinoid seed dressings have been used. It is noteworthy that Integrated Pest Management friendly pirimicarb (Pirimor®) is currently resistance free so it would be a good first choice for an aphid specific foliar spray. Other alternatives are also available including, diafenthiuron (Pegusus®), spirotetramat (Movento®), pymetrozine (Chess®) an OP or spray oil. If foliar neonicotinoids are to be used against aphids I recommend the following to help manage resistance. Try to limit in-season use of foliar neonicotinoids for aphid control if they have been used as a seed treatment. If foliar sprays are required for aphid control and neonicotinoid seed treatments have been used it is most important that the first foliar spray is not from the neonicotinoid chemical group. Finally, consider the implications of coincident aphids if spraying neonicotinoids against other pests such as mirids. Aphids will develop resistance even if the sprays are not targeted directly against them and control failures could result.

Recycling of textile wastes gives the fibre a second life in a rejuvenised life cycle and thus increases the total value of the fibre. The development of new, higher value products from recycled fibres will encourage utilisation of the fibres and contribute to the future sustainability of cotton industry.

The travel allowance was used to pay part of the cost for Mr Samuel Ello-Ekombo, a student from Arts & Métiers graduate school of engineering (France). Mr Ello-Ekombo applied in early 2011 for an internship with CSIRO to work on a project investigating the use of recycled cotton in polymeric composites.

The travel subsidy of $3500 from the CRDC was used to cover around half of his living allowance for the six month internship.

Aspects of this project were delivered in collaboration with the GRDC project BGC00001 “Raising awareness of drift reduction techniques.”

Workshop Program for Cotton Growers and Their Neighbours (co-funded by GRDC)

A total of 53 application and drift management workshops were delivered to 1046 cotton and grain growers, with independent evaluation showing more than 80% of the participants surveyed had changed one or more practices within 3-6 months of attending the workshop.

Exit Surveys showed that 98% of participants were at least satisfied with the workshop (venue, timing, resources, presenter), 83 % were at least very satisfied, and 17% suggested the workshop exceeded their expectations.

95% of participants said they obtained new information by attending the workshop and would recommend the workshop to people they know.

A further 6 workshops were provided to 103 advisors, and 6 workshops for trainers were delivered to more than 154 participants (an additional 2 of the trainer workshops were run in conjunction with the GRDC project).

The external cash and in-kind contributions to this project were 1.34 times greater than the CRDC cash contribution.

Application and Drift Management Trial Program

The workshop program was supported by 7 application trials, with the data obtained used to modify training materials and was presented to growers and advisors at industry meetings and updates. 3 Trials resulted in a change to the WeedSeeker® setup by the manufacturer, 4 separate efficacy based trials demonstrated that coarse droplets do provide equivalent efficacy for many types herbicide applications, and that the use of coarse droplets was effective in fallow situations for phenoxy and glyphosate products. Trials indicated that in wider row situations (1.5m) efficacy could also be achieved with Roundup Ready Herbicide, however the use of extremely coarse droplets for over the top Roundup Ready® applications had the potential to reduce efficacy in 1m row, solid plant situations.

A single study evaluating relatively new techniques for measuring spray drift (comparing daytime and night time spraying) highlighted the risks associated with night spraying. The methodology used for the spray drift study using a range of cations and mass spectrometry (in place of traditional fluorometric methodologies) proved to be a useful and relatively low cost method for estimating drift potential under differing environmental conditions.

The results of this study were passed on to the National Working Committee for Pesticide Application for further consideration.

Take Home Messages

Minimising spray drift continues to be a challenge for all agricultural industries. The cotton industry, through its long term support for training and extension in drift management has been able to act as a catalyst for establishing a national program for delivering the application and drift management workshops developed by BGC. GRDC will be funding the delivery of this program nationally to grain growers for the 2012-2015 period.

The challenge for the cotton industry will be to maintain its status as an industry leader in extending information related to application and drift management.

During 2008‐2011, the Australian Cotton industry faced numerous challenges when it experienced significant drought over a number of years, followed by crippling floods in late 2010, early 2011. These environmental aspects combined with a rapidly increasing demand from alternative regional industries for labour and a significant expansion of the industry regional footprint particularly in southern NSW. As a direct result of these challenges, the human capacity within cotton enterprises and agribusiness / service industries was significantly depleted. Industry had to do more with less to remain viable. To assist industry in revitalising this capacity, industry invested in the Professional Development Manager position occupied by Mark Hickman (Qld DEEDI). The position had a significant influence on the human capacity and professional development programs that focused skill sets to drive workforce development rather than knowledge creation.

Traditional extension programs were aligned to educational outcomes associated with the vocational education and training sector and a major effort was placed on building relationships with stakeholders that influence the state and national training agenda to ensure the cotton industry needs were addressed. Strategic programs created by this project resulted in the Cotton Industry being acknowledged in two independent reports as a leading industry nationally and internationally for capacity building programs. One review commissioned by the National Quality Council of Australia; (a peak vocational body) highlighted Cotton Industry use of skills sets to drive workforce development and industry qualifications. This was one of 4 case studies selected by the NQC to demonstrate to the Commonwealth government justification for significantly shifting the existing funding

arrangements from a traditional qualification competition basis to a skill set basis.

The second was conducted by Dr Mike Rafferty (Sydney University: for the International Labour Organisation United Nations) in an Australian review which investigated how the Cotton Industry was developing Skills for Green Jobs. A paper was delivered in Geneva 2010. The project provided numerous innovative products that are industry legacies. One legacy is the creation, industry endorsement and subsequent implementation of agriculture’s first best management practice accreditation of an individual. The industry award, Certified BMP Farm Manager, aka Diploma of Agriculture (specialise in Cotton) assesses and acknowledges the individual’s management practices and established systems to achieve and operate a myBMP accredited farm. The second legacy is the E learning platforms and

subsequent relationships established with AACC and Tocal College as a result of the Australian Flexible E learning Framework funding. This external industry funding that resulted in four online products for industry addressing OH & S, staff management, skills recognition and system evaluations of overhead irrigation systems. However, the experience provided invaluable learnings for the contextualisation, design and implementation of this alternative learning platform ‐ learnings that will be value added to in future projects. The third legacy is how industry has also fully embraced a new human resources module that was initially created by and then co developed by Mark Hickman. The module is included in the in the myBMP package and is acknowledged as a leading module for grower engagement.

Having a designated Professional Development Manager within industry has identified financial training subsidy opportunities and has created an ability to influence the national skilling agenda through the provision of industry intelligence. In particular, the cotton industry was one of the few agricultural industries to make the federal Enterprise based Productivity Placement Program (EBPPP). The combination of this federal (EBPPP) and state based Productivity Placement Programs (PPP) funding has increased the exposure of industry to vocational assessments through the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) ‐ an impact that has resulted in 54 people participating in the industry first RPL program.

In conclusion, the combination of close working relationships with industry and vocational stakeholders and the established strategies from this project’s activity have provided foundations for future capacity building programs. Revitalising the labour pool and technical expertise available to the industry is a long term process. However, project CRC 5.01.26 (Professional Development Manager‐ Cotton) has made a meaningful industry contribution.

Commercial biopesticides based on entomopathogenic fungi are expected to be registered for use as microbial biological control of aphids in Australia in the near future. Field trials of prototype biopesticides based on entomopathogenic fungi have shown that while aphids are highly susceptible, natural enemies are not affected in the field, even though they are susceptible in the laboratory (DAQ111C). Based on the work of Roy et al. (2008), the hypothesis tested was that beneficial insects have behavioural responses to the biopesticides that allow them to avoid infection. The project observed the behaviour of predators of aphids (green lacewings) and both infected aphids and cotton leaf surfaces treated with biopesticides. Most of these studies were conducted on leaves taken from cotton plants grown in temperature controlled growth cabinets at QUT. The biopesticides used are based on a commercial formulation of the fungus Metarhizium (Met 52, Novozymes Ltd), and Australian isolates of Beauveria, both held at QUT.

The purpose of this study is to better understand the ecological relationship and behaviours between two particular natural enemies of the cotton pest Aphis Gossypii (Cotton Aphid); Mallada signatus (Green Lacewing) (supplied by Bugs for Bugs) and M. anisopliae. The goal of the study is to be able to improve management of insect pests in the future. More specifically this study aims to identify if M. signatus larvae can detect the presence of insect pathogenic fungi M. anisopliae. M. signatus is a non-selective or generalist predator. The lack of a specific prey make this insect extremely useful as a biological control because once the pest population has been brought to low levels the predator will then move on to a different more abundant prey in the area which means that the population of pest insects will be slower to recover as there is ongoing predation in the area keeping numbers of pests low.

These regional extension positions are a part of the Cotton CRC National Cotton Extension Team which has worked on an industry‐wide scale to take a knowledge management approach to deliver grower focused, participatory adoption and extension programmes. The project commenced in February 2007 with two regional extension officer positions on the Darling Downs based at Dalby and in the Border Rivers region based at Goondiwindi. It had been preceded by a QDPI&F funded extension position at Dalby from which Greg Salmond had transferred in September 2006 and an industry funded extension position at Goondiwindi from which Rebecca Smith resigned in June 2006.

The project was established in accordance with the 2005 Industry Extension Review with the two regional positions included in the one project in a co funded partnership between Cotton CRC/CRDC and QPIF. Salary costs have been shared on a 50:50 basis with operational funds provided by industry and overhead costs funded by QPIF.

A rigorous recruitment program resulted in the commencement of the new extension

officers, Kate Charleston at Dalby and Rod Gordon at Goondiwindi in February 2007. Both officers became well established during 2007 having initiated and conducted a broad range of extension activities according to well developed regional and national extension plans. Regional priorities and needs were identified, prioritised and incorporated in work plans in collaboration with growers, consultants and other extension officers. Unfortunately, both officers vacated their positions in May 2008. Kate Charleston transferred to an insect IPM extension position in QPIF and Rod Gordon resigned to accept the offer of a grower relationship and marketing position with Auscott Gwydir after a short but very successful tenure at Goondiwindi.

Following extensive discussion between CRDC and QPIF relating to the turnover of staff, the recruitment of new officers was deferred pending a review of the extension officer roles to consider the issue of staff retention for the longer term. The development and agreement on a Discussion Paper during 2008 led to the recruitment for the Darling Downs position being implemented in November 2008 and the appointment of Duncan Weir in April 2009 based in Toowooomba. A new project proposal was conditionally approved by CRDC in April 2009 for commencement on July 1, 2009. Accordingly, a formal review based on facilitated conducted by Ewan Colquhoun in June 2009 has been completed.

Interim arrangements for the maintenance of the project were implemented in October 2008 when Ingrid Rencken was appointed on a temporary parttime basis from October 1 to June 30 to maintain essential project activities.

Duncan Weir is rapidly establishing his regional extension role in the project since

commencing in April 2009. He has maintained the regional Cotton Tales newsletters,

completed the NUE site sampling and participated in a range of industry activities whilst

establishing working relationships with growers, consultants and industry organisations.

The extent of achievement against each of the objectives has been constrained by the mid season commencement and short fourteen month tenure of the appointed extension officers.Sound regional extension plans were developed and implemented in both regions for the 07/08 year following consultation with the regional reference panels including growers from the regional cotton grower association and consultants. In the absence of full time officers in 08/09, essential elements form the plans were addressed by Ingrid Rencken with support from Jenelle Hare, David Kelly and project superviser, Geoff McIntyre.

Both extension officers applied a range of extension delivery methods during 07/08.

However, they both experienced considerable difficulty in engaging significant numbers of growers given the dry season which, combined with low prices for cotton and higher grain returns, resulted in significantly reduced cotton plantings in both regions and substantially tempered grower interest and enthusiasm in many industry activities.The difficult 07/08 seasonal conditions limited opportunities for collaborative field activities quite substantially such that the extension effort was focussed on whole of region approaches particularly through Cotton Tales newsletter, and development of information resources.

Project team members including Kate Charleston, Rod Gordon, Ingrid Rencken, Duncan

Weir, Jenelle Hare and Geoff McIntyre established a strong collaborative partnership with Cotton Australia contributing considerable support to the development of the industry BMP program with Bec Smith and Louise Adcock. Technical information delivery has been in the context of industry best practice providing support to the BMP program. There is a challenge for stronger engagement with growers, consultants and agribusiness in the regional extension program. The plan is for a more strategic engagement especially with growers on an individual or small group basis for specific purposes to address regional priority issues through the implementation of field demonstration trials to evaluate and adapt new technologies. This could result in a reinvigoration of area wide management groups. The implementation of industry BMP provides an ideal framework in which to deliver these strategies in collaboration with the Cotton Australia Regional managers. The existing strong partnerships with consultants and agribusiness must be maintained and enhanced.

The aim of this study was to conduct processing trials at the CMSE Cotton Mill, with a bale of the current Australian Long Staple Upland variety (Sicala 340BRF) with fibre properties that fall into stipulated specifications. Fine count combed ringspun yarns were produced to determine the quality and processing performance of these yarns, with information from these trials assisting in the commercial mill trials planned for 2013.

We were able to spin 40-60 Ne combed ringspun yarns without any processing performance issues; we were however not able to spin 74 Ne yarns successfully. The quality of the yarns produced was uneven and not strong enough for the weaving process.

The trial showed that although the fibre properties reported by the HVI such as length, strength and Micronaire were within the contracted specifications we were unable to produce even strong yarns needed for weaving. The reason for this was due to the fact that the fibre was immature resulting in higher than expected nep and short fibre content which affected the evenness and strength of the yarns.

The message is clear; we will need to fully describe the cotton; adding fibre properties such as maturity, fineness and nep content to HVI measurements to ensure that spinners can produce quality 40-80 Ne yarns without any processing performance problems. This will increase the demand for this cotton and ultimately lead to more growers growing the cotton due to the premiums spinners are prepared to pay for this cotton.