To highlight the importance of maintaining and enhancing riparian and aquatic biodiversity on cotton farms, it is proposed that a field guide entitled Fishes on Cotton Farms be produced for the north-west NSW region. This production complements a guide entitled Birds on Cotton Farms, which provides cotton growers with a better understanding of bird species and their habitat requirements in the farming landscape. The guide also complements the management guidelines outlined in the Australian Cotton Best Management Practice (BMP) manual. Date

In late 2012, there was an identification of reniform nematodes (Rotylenchulus reniformis)

affecting cotton across a number of fields and farms in Theodore in Central Queensland.

Feeding causes damage to the plant resulting in stunting and generally poor plant growth.

Further investigations are continuing to determine the extent and likely severity of this pest in the Australian cotton system. This sampling protocol has been developed so that growers and consultants can contribute samples to these investigations.

Australian irrigated cotton growers are committed to improving their Water Use Efficiency (WUE) for economic, environmental, social and political reasons (Breen et al, 2006). Furrow irrigation is the dominant irrigation system and is used all over Australian by irrigated cotton growers, who are committed to improving their water use efficiency for economic, environmental, social and political reasons. The Australian cotton industry is predominantly irrigated by furrow irrigation with siphons. Increasing the performance of such systems generally requires an intensification of the existing labour requirements while the current labour force is dwindling. Various alternatives have and are being considered but there is a lack of data that exists about comparisons of alternatives to fully optimised furrow irrigated field and even more so a lack of data about the individual potential of each system to perform better. The siphon-less project was developed to address this knowledge gap by using the same methods to measure and the same water use efficiency indices to assess the performance of each alternative system and an adjacent furrow irrigated field. Four systems, located throughout the Border Rivers and Lower Balonne catchments, were assessed over the 2005/06 summer including: Overhead Irrigation (Lateral Move), Bank-less Channel, Bank-less Head Ditch and Pipes Through the Banks. The following water use efficiency indices were calculated: Gross production Water Use Efficiency Index, Application Efficiency and Distribution Uniformity. In addition final infiltration rates, gross margin including development, operational and input costs were generated for each field under investigation. Results have demonstrated that the siphon-less irrigation systems compared reasonably well and in one case exceeded the water use efficiency of the adjacent furrow irrigated field. The development of siphon-less systems is more costly while the operating costs vary between systems. All systems have shown that there is still room for improvement. While furrow irrigation with siphons remains the pre-dominant irrigation method of the Australian cotton industry, efforts towards improving the performance of this system still remains of paramount importance.

REPORTS FROM RESEARCHERS IN THE FIELD SUGGEST THAT WITHOUT GOOD MANAGEMENT OF PEST AND DISEASE HOSTS OVER AUTUMN AND WINTER, IT COULD ONLY BE GOOD LUCK THAT SAVES THE INDUSTRY FROM CROP FAILURES NEXT SEASON.

The over reliance on, and widespread use of, synthetic insecticides has led to resistance, increased concerns about the long term environmental impacts, and public health issues (Smart et al 1994). These issues of cost, efficacy, resistance and environmental impacts have led to the increased implementation of Integrated Pest Management(IPM) strategies. Crop plants including cotton can produce chemicals that can modify the behaviour of insects, particularly pests (Tinsworth 1990). The use of behaviour modifying compounds such as feeding deterrents, oviposition deterrents, attractants, repellents etc. , which can reduce insect feeding or egg lay without killing pests, has intuitive appeal because such compounds can be used in IPM to reduce synthetic insecticide sprays. In addition they are safer to non-target organisms.

One step in the production of transgenic cotton is the regeneration of whole plants from undifferentiated cells (calli) in which the gene of interest has been inserted. The first stage is a crucial one and involves producing plant embryos from callus cells (somatic embryogenesis). The frequency of embryo formation is low and the process is poorly understood. Of the cultivars that can form embryos, most are no longer grown commercially (e. g., Coker). To introduce a gene into commercially important cultivars, the standard international practice is to transform a Coker cultivar, produce plants that are homozygous for the gene inserted and then enter these plants into a backcross breeding program (Wilkins et al. 2000). This process delays the commercial release of transgenic cotton by several years' A method that allows commercial cotton cultivars to be transformed and regenerated directly would be a significant advance in cotton biotechnology (Rajasekaran et al. 2001).

Cotton fibres, or lint, are very long single cells containing almost pure cellulose. The fibres develop in the weeks after flowering from single cells on the surface of the young seed. Each fibre cell is small at first but elongates and develops rapidly, eventually forming the mature cotton fibre. These processes require the ordered expression of genes which make enzymes, structural proteins and signalling molecules that together determine the properties of the fibre. Domestication has modified fibre development to produce cotton varieties with greatly improved fibre length, strength and quality. However, the selection and breeding of plants with desirable fibre characteristics is slow and expensive. As such, future crop improvement is likely to depend upon genetic engineering and the cotton industry has been a leader in both research and commercialisation of transgene technology, with momentous consequences for the agronomic properties of the crop such as insect and herbicide resistance. However, the potential for fibre modification by biotechnology has yet to be realised Apart from their commercial significance, the single-celled nature of cotton fibres and their synchronous growth inside the cotton boll has made them an attractive system for the study of plant cell elongation and cell wall biogenesis. Such fundamental studies have resulted in the identification of a number of genes with proposed roles in cotton fibre growth, and have led to the creation of the first molecular and cellular model of fibre development (Wilkins and Jernstedt, 1999). The model has provided the basis for limited early success in the alteration of fibre growth, but not on a commercial scale,

The broad aims of CCC CRC 5.2.03 ‘Delivering science to agribusiness: Smart approaches to cotton irrigation management’ were to; conduct irrigation research for emerging crop management issues and alternative cotton cropping systems; provide industry with an enhanced version of HydroLOGIC; and document a decision framework for integrating irrigation management tools. This project formed a key application and feedback link within the Cotton Management Support System Team, which developed targeted, cotton specific management tools for the Australian industry. This project also supported the CSIRO Plant Industry water research team of Mr Stephen Yeates (scientific development), Mr Dirk Richards (DSS development and application) and Mr James Neilsen (plant water relations).

Key research findings and outcomes were:

* Bollgard water use and scheduling

* Extraction patterns and the depth of rooting were similar in the Bollgard and conventional treatments by the end of the season.

* Bollgard®II had the potential to use less water whilst maintaining a yield advantage.

* Bollgard®II may be more sensitive to larger deficits (>55-60% PAWC), late in flowering and should be watered before conventional fields.

* A reduction in gross and irrigation water use efficiency was only found in Bollgard®II where moisture stress was experienced at or close to cut-out.

Application and use of HydroLOGIC in the industry

* Feedback from HydroLOGIC trial co-operators and users indicated a mixture of strategic and tactical use including; area to plant depending on water available; confirming scheduling decisions (consultants); benchmarking crop water use after harvest. A key application of the software was late in the season and when determining the last irrigation, with HydroLOGIC often indicating that the final irrigation was not required.

* HydroLOGIC user surveys indicated great value in this decision support tool with:

* 36% of respondents using the software to compare water use across farms,

* 44% of respondents finding the software easy to use, while recognising that the tool addresses complex issues and this requires significant training,

* 50% of respondents finding the data required by the software easy to collect,

* 78% of respondents saw HydroLOGIC fitting into their enterprise, and

* 60% of respondents indicating their wanted to learn more about HydroLOGIC.

* The greatest value in HydroLOGIC was in the areas of limited water (18%), irrigation scheduling (11%) and first irrigation (8%).

Documentation and integration of irrigation decision tools

* Research over two seasons demonstrated the value in using the Irrimate™, WaterTrack™, and HydroLOGIC tools to assist in separate aspects of water management. These experiments indicated the combined use of these products can result in significant water savings through improved irrigation efficiency, optimised water scheduling, identification of on-farm losses, and changes in farm management and infrastructure.

* All tools provided good commercial estimates of crop water use and use of any would result in better irrigation practice.

Research results from this project were successfully communicated to the Australian cotton industry via industry publications, media release, presentations and all other relevant media. An essential component of the projects success was the close collaboration with commercial cotton growers, consultants and the Cotton CRC extension network.

The commonly used Micronaire value for cotton is related to both fibre fineness (weight per unit length) and maturity. There is a need for a new measurement technique to separate these. This is of particular importance to the Australian industry where varieties of fine, mature cotton have the potential to be wrongfully discounted commercially if a low Micronaire value is taken as indicating immaturity.

The CRDC is currently funding research at CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology aimed at developing techniques to measure fibre fineness and maturity to overcome this deficiency in the micronaire measurement.

One difficultly with research in this area is that there are no internationally recognised standard cotton samples that can be used for checking the accuracy of new measurement approaches or for that matter for checking the calibration and accuracy of existing instrumentation.

Researchers at USDA in New Orleans and Texas Tech. University have been tackling this problem by coordinating the development of a standardised set of cotton samples specifically for this purpose. The cottons in this set will each have well characterised values of both fibre fineness and maturity and the set will cover a wide commercial range in these parameter values. This set will then be of extensive value to the cotton community.

Utilising our expertise in measuring cotton fibre fineness and maturity, CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology, has participated in these trials as an independent measurement test laboratory.

The use of the new round module builder pickers has grown very quickly in Australia, reaching about 90% in 2015. As the round module is wrapped by plastic film, concern has been expressed by cotton gins that the moisture content of the round modules may be higher than expected, resulting in increased drying cost and potential impacts on fibre quality.

A continuous module monitoring system which includes a temperature & humidity sensor connected by cable to a datalogger is used. The sensor is inserted into the middle of the round module using special hand tools. Relative humidity (RH) and temperature inside the module are recorded in the datalogger every 15 to 30 minutes for up to eight months without intervention. This gives us the full history of a round module from harvesting to ginning.

The temperature and relative humidity at the top part of the round module fluctuates significantly while conditions in rest of the module were very stable. After a long period of storage, the top part of the module dries out and the bottom part becomes the wettest region. Covering the modules by a tarpaulin significantly reduces the fluctuation of temperature and relative humidity and slows down the drying of cotton at the top part of the module. The orientation of modules during storage has an influence on the conditions of the modules. Core temperatures of modules stored with axis in North-South direction were about 2˚C higher than those stored in the East-West direction during the hot months of the year.

Several cotton quality attributes (length uniformity, strength and colour) displayed statistically significant changes between modules ginned at the beginning of trial and that ginned at the end of the storage period.