Final Report Protection of cotton seedlings from Thielaviopsis by microbes

Final Report The chemical properties of treated effluent and its effect on cotton germination: a case study on federation farm

FR

Since 2005, the Cotton Catchment Communities CRC (Cotton CRC) and the Namoi Catchment Management Authority (Namoi CMA) have had a partnership to work with cotton growers within the Namoi valley as well as other government organisations, industry bodies, research organisations and the general community to deliver natural resource management outcomes in line with the Namoi Catchment Action Plan (CAP). The Namoi CMA and Cotton CRC worked collaboratively with research organisations to provide the industry and agency extension staff and growers with the best available information to make land management decisions.

There were primarily two objectives to the project:1. Collate and publish existing information on irrigation management benchmarks within the Australian Cotton industry. The following draft report was prepared: Payero, J.O. and Harris, G.A. 2007 Benchmarking water management in the Australian Cotton Industry, Cotton Catchment Communities CRC/Dept of Primary Industries and Fisheries, Toowoomba2. Implement strategies to gather and report on cotton industry water management benchmarks in an on-going fashion to monitor performance of the industry.

Honours - Using polyethylene glycol-mediated transformation when identifying pathogenicity genes in Thielaviopsis basicola

This report overviews data collected from three sources. Grower data from Cotton Consultants Australia Inc. (CCA) Grower Feedback Survey is presented in combination with information from the CCA Consultant Survey. Data were also contributed for this report from consultants who use Paddock Action Manager (PAM) software, resulting in field level data for 346 Bollgard fields and 98 Conventional fields.

Honours - Interaction of surface water and groundwater in the lower Peel valley

This project supported the cotton industries Technology Resource Centre (TRC). The TRC&#39s role is to help funnel information via different forms to appropriate destinations within the industry and community.The web is now a major interface for this information flow and as such. The TRC&#39s major role is upgrading of the cotton industries research delivery website. A major upgrade to a content management system for the Cotton CRC web site during this project has had a number of positive outcomes including:- Higher visitation rates to the site with greater than 7000 visits per month- Improved web reporting tools- Provision of web based forms for use by researchers, extension officers and CRC management to collect information.- Easier maintenance of the site including much quicker page and web structure development times.The web is the major focus for the TRC project however it also works within other parts of the information flow pathway including:Production: The TRC has assisted with production to print ready stage of a number of hardcopy information sheets and other documents including documents to support special industry needs such as the Tobacco Streak virus outbreak in Central Queensland. The TRC also produced in house a number of digital titles including the COTTONPaks CD and Darling Downs trial booklet on CD using provided copy.Targeted and General dissemination: the TRC through its maintenance of the Cotton industry mailing list has targeted segments of / or the complete cotton industry via hardcopy mail, electronic broadcast using the cotton CRC Enews (email) and RSS feeds. The electronic broadcasts are normally aimed at alerting Cotton CRC clients to information already resident on the Cotton CRC web site. Positive responses are seen to these notifications.The Cotton Catchment Communities CRC web site now acts as a repository of most public information produced by the Cotton CRC and research partners over its different programs. The Group home pages (Industry Catchments and Communities) as well as the What New and Events pages are constantly being updated to look fresh and highlight new information that is being made available on the web site.In reaching for a broader audience with the web the TRC project adapted the hardcopy Biodiversity calendar for 2008 in to a web format. This has become one of the most popular pages on the web site with hits on the main calendar page often exceeding the hits on the home page. This concept will be continued into the future and will showcase issues pertaining to cotton communities to an external audience.Internal Communications: The TRC has established staff lounge intranet pages to assist internal communications with researchers and extension officers.The TRC is an integral part of the national extension network and works closely with extension officers with distribution of information in support of improving industry practice.The TRC has provided resources, physical and digita,l for growers, consultants extension officers and researchers to access research products. It has assisted with special industry need such a TSV Issues in Queensland and The nationwide Bee alert systemAssisting with special industry needs:The TRC is in a good position to help in the response to special industry needs such as the Tobacco Streak Virus issue in Queensland where it was able to assist local extension officers with the dissemination of firstly images in support of diagnosis and then information sheets with more detailed information laid out in professional format and made available via the web and via PDF for local extension officers to print. There have been 60 Australian hits on the TSV web page since its publication. NB this is independent of information forwarded by local extension officers on the subject .Another example of the TRC&#39s response to industry need was the development of the bee alert pages on the old CRC web site these have since been updated to take advantage of features on the new CMS and The TRC has been in contact with apiarists to encourage the use of the hive notification system in cotton areas. A number of years of drought have kept apiarists out of Coolabah in cotton regions however the system is in place created by the TRC to put cotton growers and apiarists in communication when seasonal conditions change.

Final Report Developing diapause induction and moth emergence tools