This report outlines the results of the Cotton Consultants Australia Grower Feedback Survey. The survey was sent to cotton growers across the industry with a response rate of approximately 17 per cent or slightly less than 19 percent of the area of cotton planted in the 2005-2006 season. The 2006 survey included a series of questions specifically for collecting information from growers on water monitoring and Water Use Efficiency (WUE), soil monitoring and management, grower interaction with Catchment Management Authorities (CMAs) and equivalent bodies, fertiliser use, management of native vegetation and riparian zones, and monitoring of native and feral animal species&quote;

The Australian Cotton Industry has always been held in high regard by the Australian and World Agricultural sectors due to its innate ability to focus on and overcome the challenges it faces. This has continually been achieved due to the industry's commitment to researchers and the ability to effectively and efficiently disseminate this information to growers and their consultants via the current extension method. This has been demonstrated in the Lower Balonne with the CRC implementation of this project.The information contained in this project provides many positive examples of the need for such a method to deliver and extend research outcomes and best farming practices to the industry. Most importantly feedback from growers 21 of 21indicates that the project has the support of the greater majority of the farmers in the St George, Dirranbandi and Thallon region. Their continual support, participation and attendance at the activities such as workshops, field walks, meetings and grower tours only further substantiates this.These 3 projects have shown that there is an opportunity to exploit the existing network of private consultants so as to deliver tangible outcomes for the whole of industry. Reductions in both insecticide usage for whitefly and mirids and a dramatic decrease in the incidence of 2,4-D damage is further justification of the successful nature of this partnership between the Cotton CRC and cotton consultants.I believe the Extension Team provides an invaluable service to the whole of industry and have seen first hand the exchange of ideas and knowledge that occurs when growers, consultants, researchers and industry staff are bought together, thus ensuring that we as an industry are progressing towards a sustainable future.

CRDC's Annual Operational Plan for 2016-17 (AOP): the fourth annual operational plan under the CRDC's Strategic R&D Plan 2013-18.

Thesis Nutrient loss in cotton production: A preliminary investigation of major nutrients being transported in the irrigation tail waters

The Cotton Training Coordinator project (5.1.01) was developed from the previous three year CRDC funded project: 4.2.04 AC (IPM Training Coordinator). The IPM coordinator project focused on the development and implementation of a very successful Integrated Pest Management course within the Australian cotton industry. The IPM course was the first industry developed grower training program to be linked to a national training competency from the vocational education sector. The target audience was cotton producers with the primary focus of increasing their capacity to implement a more challenging pest management program. This course used a &quote;hands on&quote; approach in terms of delivery and was strongly based on adult learning principles. This particular project was successful and well received

This project combined two projects previously supported by the CRDC and one by the Cotton CRC that contributed to the development of decision tools for the cotton industry. This project alone was the principle project that supported the cotton industry&#39s investment in decision support development.502

Australian cotton is purchased for a premium on the basis of quality and consistency. However, coarse (high micronaire) fibre, high nep counts and excessive short fibre are industry concerns. Quality is affected by many interacting factors e.g. variety, seasonal conditions and crop and harvest management. Appropriate varieties, management for each region's climate, and processing to minimise damage to fibre are opportunities to improve fibre quality. Through a significant combined research effort this project aimed to optimise cotton fibre quality of Australian cotton by: direct influences of on-farm agronomic management and climate on fibre development; and post-harvest research that investigated the degree of these influences on textile performance in the mill.

Carried out as a summer scholarship between December 2012 and March 2013, the researcher sought to outline the potential contribution of corn in rotation with cotton, in comparison to historical cotton and wheat rotations after minimum or maximum tillage. It tested the hypothesis that there is no difference in cotton root growth for cotton grown in a cotton monoculture, and after wheat and corn. Understanding cotton root growth and turnover will enhance the capability for primary industries to adopt more resilient and adaptive farming strategies and systems, and also encourage adaptive strategies to change initiatives and resource development. A better understanding of cotton root growth characteristics under monoculture and different rotations will provide growers with better crop water and nutrient management strategies.The field experiment was conducted in Narrabri NSW, consisting of six treatments in a split plot design with four replicates. The experiment used minirhizotron, core break, root washing and plant mapping methods to measure cotton root growth and turnover during the 2012/2013 growing season. Cotton vegetative growth and potential carbon input by cotton roots was improved by including corn in rotation (cotton-corn-cotton) relative to historical cotton rotations.

It was demonstrated that varying irrigation deficits, if linked to measures of plant stress, will improve cotton yield and WUE. These benefits if adopted will impact on the 75% of Australia's irrigated cotton that is grown in a sub-humid climate with significant but variable in-crop rainfall and evaporative demand. When conditions were hot and dry during flowering, as in the 2006/7 season, frequent irrigation of Bollgard II cotton (40mm deficit) increased yield by 17% and WUE by 8% compared to the commonly used deficit (70-80mm) in the lower Namoi that season. In contrast, in 2007/8, where during flowering in-crop rainfall was greater and evaporative demand lower, stretching irrigation during flowering (54 to 78mm deficits) maximised yield, WUE and captured more in-crop rainfall than irrigating at a 40mm deficit. However, irrigation application efficiency tradeoffs are farm specific and need to be measured before adopting small deficits.Improved scheduling of Bollgard II in water limited situations has been largely achieved with the contribution of the research conducted in this project. The need to avoid water stress late in flowering in Bollgard II was confirmed as yield losses per day of stress were double the conventional variety at the same growth stage. This message has been widely extended over the past three years.The question of which has the higher WUE, conventional or Bollgard II varieties, has been answered by showing that it depends on the impact that Helicoverpa damage has on crop morphology. In a situations where insect damage was moderate Bollgard II used less water than the conventional variety because the conventional variety grew for longer to compensate for the damage. Where insect damage is minimal there is no difference because the plants are morphologically identical. However the situation where early tipping of the main-stem was the only insect damage to the conventional variety, it had the highest yield and WUE due to the improved canopy structureThe irrigation water requirement of cotton in pressurised systems (e.g. tape) was sensitive to climatic conditions and could be reduced provided the crop factor is varied in response to plant growth and climate. Cotton grew differently in this system compared to furrow irrigation.OZCOT model enhancement is need if it is to effectively simulate climatic risk in new production regions or changed cropping practices or the simulation of water balances or climate change scenarios.This project produced data to show: 1) replication is essential for paddock size water balance trials and experiments; 2) a review of plant monitoring methods for early irrigation scheduling is required; 3) new research methodologies developed here will provide indirect benefits to the cotton industry.

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