The Australian cotton industry has, until recently, relied largely upon residual pre-plant and pre-emergent herbicides for weed control in irrigated production systems. These herbicides provide good protection against a broad spectrum of weeds. In some circumstances, however, residual herbicides adversely impact the growth and development of young cotton seedlings. This is particularly the case when cool wet conditions occur early in the cotton season. As well, the majority of these herbicides have a half-life of three to four months and may persist for long periods when bound to clay particles within the soil profile. Movement of these molecules bound to clay particles is common in irrigated systems. While procedures to minimise riverine contamination are in place on irrigated farming systems, herbicides are routinely detected in the river systems of the central and north-west regions (Table I). It should be noted that of these detections atrazine and metolachlor are the only herbicides detected in significant amounts and these are used extensively in dryland sorghum.

The CSIRO Cotton Cultivar Trial(CCT) has been run cooperatively by CSIRO and DPIQ for 24 years and is used as the last stage in our breeding line evaluation. Early generation testing following single plant selection involves unreplicated progeny rows at the Australian Cotton Research Institute, further progeny row tests and multiple row replicated trials at a limited number of farm sites. At each stage, lines with poor seedling vigour, disease susceptibility poor fibre quality or low yield are removed from further testing. The CCT involves 13 irrigated sites and three dryland sites in all major cotton growing regions in Australia. Management is normal commercial practice including full insect control. Entries in the CCT include promising breeding lines and commercial standards. Plots consist of three or four rows from 10 to 14 metres long. There were five replications in the 1996/97 trials and four in 1997/98. The centre rows of all plots are harvested with a modified picker, the seed cotton weighed and a subsample is taken for ginning at Biloela or Narrabri and fibre quality analysis at Narrabri. The most promising lines are retained in the scheme and also seed increased. In this way, by the time good performance is confined, sufficient seed is available for large scale testing and final seed increase for commercial use.

WEEDpak is a compilation of information on the management of weeds in the Australian cotton industry. The major theme throughout WEEDpak is the management of weeds through integrated weed management (IWM) principles. It is a synthesis of extensive research on IWM conducted over the last 13 years, now released in one volume at the 11 Australian Cotton Conference. The entire document can be found at www.cottoninfo.com.au/publications/weedpak.

The CSIRO breeding program at the Australian Cotton Research Institute at Narrabri aims to develop locally adapted varieties for use by Australian farmers, The program has been very successful in developing varieties for all cotton growing areas with eleven conventional and five Ingard varieties available through Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD) for 1998 planting. Key advances from the CSIRO breeding program include the development of varieties with okra leaf (for insect and mite tolerance), better disease resistance (particularly bacterial blight and Verticillium wilt), improved fibre quality and good adaptation to cool growing areas. The varieties produced by CSIRO have brought many millions of extra dollars to farmers and have been a key factor in the rapid expansion of the cotton industry in recent years. As a continuation of this program of regular release of new high performing varieties we are pleased to announce the introduction of three new varieties: Sicala 40, Siokra V-16 and Sicot 189i

Oils having very high levels of oleic acid have superior stability and are valuable for frying and other high temperature applications. Oils with equal proportion of palmitic acid, oleic acid, stearic acid, namely, the POS type oil may be suitable starting material for the development of cocoa butter substitute. Our project aims to produce cottonseed oil with elevated levels of stearic and/or oleic acid by means of antisense inhibition of both the 11.9 stearoyl-ACP and microsomal ro-6 desaturase genes.

CSIRO Wool Technology in Geelong has traditionally focussed on 'post-farm' wool research but is now expanding its activities to include textile related research and development for the wider Australian industry, including cotton. With approximately 200 staff at its laboratories and full mill processing facility in Geelong, CSIRO Wool Technology has extensive expertise in raw wool measurement and characterisation, wool textile processing, characterisation and optimisation of wool fabric properties and the development of new wool products. Much of this expertise can be applied to other fibres as illustrated in the current paper. In a preliminary study the Sirolan- Laserscan, developed at Wool Technology for measuring the fibre diameter characteristics of wool, has been successfully applied in a novel mode of operation to accurately assess cotton fibre fineness.

The Project - A Review of Australian Cotton Classing Standards and perhaps for some, may be even many, of the Australian cotton growers prompting the question - Why? The comment &quote;If it isn't broken why fix it&quote; was heard on a number of occasions during meetings both formal and informal during August and September last year.

Even though the Australian cotton industry is based on a high input irrigated system, there is an increasingly significant area of dryland cotton. Over the last few years there has been increased interest, by researchers and growers alike, in trying to gain the maximum amount of yield from the limited water that is available to them. This limited water occurs both in dryland systems, and in irrigated systems where water allocation from storages is reduced due to low dam levels.

It is very important to understand the nature of the phenomena which have been collectively characterised as the 'Asian financial crisis' or the 'Asian meltdown'. I would like to take you through an analysis of what really happened to provide a context for the outlook for cotton in particular and Australian trade in general. A good understanding of the events is also necessary before we can attempt to draw out any lessons from the experience.

Control of Helicoverpa armigera is being forced towards minimising reliance on broad spectrum insecticides. Serious environmental concerns have emerged over the extensive use of highly toxic, non-specific compounds to control this species. Pest resurgence associated with the destruction of natural enemies and the development of high levels of insecticide resistance have lead to the steady increase in the use of biopesticides and transgenic plants containing insecticidal proteiris from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).