The apple dimpling bug (ADB), Campylomma liebknechti (Girault) is a sucking insect, indigenous to Australia which occurs in all cotton growing area. Bishop (1980) and Chinajariyawong and Water (1990)reported that ADB is a pest as well as a predator of Heliothis eggs in cotton. ADB is also considered a predator of two spotted mites in cotton (Wilson et al. 1998). Currently there are mixed conceptions within the cotton industry about the status of ADB; whether it is a pest or a beneficial insect. Some growers and consultants consider ADB as a pest in the same category as the green mirid and recommend insecticide sprays against it if numbers are over the current entomoLOGIC threshold. Some growers and consultants do not classify ADB as a pest or as a beneficial insect, but will control it with synthetic insecticides if populations are high, plants are being tipped out or pin squares are being lost and other pests like green Thirds or thrips are absent. Thus the cotton industry's mixed attitude towards ADB, in contrast to the green mirids, shows there is a substantial gap in our knowledge of the true status of this insect. Detailed study of the basic biology, behaviour, pest status and population dynamics of ADB is required so that appropriate control measures can be identified to manage them. In this paper we present some of the results of our recent research on ADB, particularly some aspects of the pest status, lifecycle, sampling and diurnal activities. In addition, we will report on the different species of apple dimpling bug found in the cotton growing areas in NSW

On May 20 19/8, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that there has been a very large increase in the area of cotton production in Queensland with cotton for ginning increasing from 15 tons in 19/7 to 55 tons in 19/8. In the year 1995/96 the value of cotton produced in Australia was $665 million and generated a further $2 billion to $35 billion in downstream processing and service industries. 809100f the cotton in 1995/96 was grown by irrigation. Australia is the driest settled continent. Periods of drought and flood are common features of a climate which is extremely variable and extremely unpredictable. The Royal Society of NSW has recorded that when the explorer Charles Sturt came to the Darling River in 1829 &quote;found the water was too salt to drink and that the water level was so low that they were able to walk over to the other side. &quote; Against this harsh setting the people of inland NSW have had to survive. History demonstrates that water storage construction has followed droughts and river flow failure attended by socio-economic stress which can be readily visualised

Historically research has shown cotton to be highly susceptible to the phenoxy herbicides. However, there is limited information on the impacts of other herbicides that may be used within current fanning systems. Every season there are reported cases of suspected herbicide damage over the summer period. Damage is primarily caused by physical drift of herbicides used for roadside weed control, or summer fallow weed management. The drift associated with fallow management can be from within or outside the farm boundary. Irrespective of where the damage originates, there are always two questions that the grower asks. &quote;What has caused this damage&quote; and &quote;will the crop recover&quote;? It was this scenario that promoted the establishment of this research. This paper examines the impacts of herbicides commonly used for fallow weed control on cotton growth and yield.

The major focus of the Australian cotton industry for pest management is to reduce the dependence on synthetic insecticides. However, despite widespread use of economic thresholds and the so called &quote;soft option&quote; IPM in the current production systems, only limited progress has been made to achieving this goal. Little emphasis has been placed on beneficial insects and since 1992, we have been funded by the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) to develop an IPM strategy which places much more emphasis on natural enemies of the cotton pests particularly Helicoverpa spp. in order to reduce the cotton industry's dependence on synthetic insecticides. The project has developed Envirofeast (food) spray product and lucerne refugia technologies to conserve and enhance the activities of natural enemies in cotton systems. The Envirofeast product when applied to cotton crops attracts and conserve the natural enemies. The lucerne crop when interplanted in cotton as strips serves as a refuge for the natural enemies (Mensah and Harris, 1995, 1996; Mensah, 1998, 1997) and sink for another cotton pest, the green mind (Mensah and Khan, 1997). The total IPM package is being evaluated by Rhone-Poulenc Rural (Australia) Pty Ltd prior to commercialisation. We report here stages 6 and 7 of the program where we compared pest, natural enemy populations and also the yield of normal and transgenic cotton crops managed with Envirofeast IPM to those managed with conventional synthetic insecticides under the Insecticide Resistance Management strategy for 1996/97 and 1997/98 seasons.

The term &quote;equity&quote; in the context of natural resource management refers to a sense of fairness in the allocation of the resource to users' Fairness in the meaning that the spectrum of resource users are treated in the same manner. To achieve equity in natural resource systems like water, where there is a changing community perception overtime as to how the resource should be allocated, the use of principles of justice to supplement law may be appropriate.

Fusarium wilt is a destructive disease of cotton which occurs in many cotton growing areas of the world, including; south-eastern USA, Egypt, Tanzania and China. It is caused by the soil inhabiting Fusarium oxysporum f.sp vasinfectum (Fov) (Hillocks, 1992) The first confirmed record of the disease in Australia was from wilted cotton collected from the Brookstead/Cecil Plains area in the Darling Downs of Queensland, in March 1993 (Kochman, 1995). Fusarium wilt has since been recorded in many commercial cotton crops on the Downs and in isolated locations at Mungindi, Boggabilla, Goondiwindi and Moree. More recently, the disease was confirmed in wilting plants in the Theodore and Miles areas of Queensland. To date, Fusarium wilt has not been recorded in the Emerald or St George areas of Queensland or cotton production areas in the Namoi and Macquarie Valleys of New South Wales

In a cool, wet season when conditions are favourable for the Verticillium dahliae fungal pathogen, Verticillium wilt disease can cost the Australian cotton industry millions of dollars in lost production. The susceptibility of cotton plants to Verticillium wilt does however vary between cotton species and cultivars (Ramsay et al, 1996), and breeders have attempted to select cotton germplasm with increased resistance to the disease. True resistance can be found in cultivars of Gossypium barbadense, such as the American cultivar Pima S-7, whereas cultivars of Gossypium hirsutum at their best only display tolerance to the disease, restricting the development of disease symptoms and allowing the production of a reasonable crop. Plant breeders from the CSIRO have now developed several G. hirsutum cultivars with increased tolerance to Verticillium wilt such as Sicala V-I, Sicala V-2 and Siokra V-15

Many of Australia's broadacre crops have or will have herbicide tolerance traits added in the future. Cotton, canola, clover and wheat are just a few of the crops that are either being conventionality bred or genetically modified to tolerate both new and old herbicides. Cotton currently has Roundup Ready@ technology with the possibility of other herbicide traits being introduced in the future, however, we need to mindful of the entire farming system and other rotation crops with similar traits being introduced. This is an important period where researchers, regulators, utilisers of the technology and consumers must communicate with each other in a timely manner where and how this technology should be utilised. In the case of cotton there are a large number of potential advantages but an equally large number of management considerations including, herbicide resistance, management of volunteers and herbicide application issues. This presentation attempts to cover some of the important considerations for cotton growers utilising herbicide tolerant cotton

It is necessary to research multiple stresses on cotton as plants are generally exposed to many stresses in the field, and interactions between them are largely unpredictable. We studied the effects of spider mite damage and water stress on cotton and determined whether cotton plants could compensate for these stresses. Dryland cotton was more resilient to mite stress than irrigated cotton. Neither dryland nor irrigated plants compensated for mite damage, except under severe mite stress when lower undamaged leaves were able to increase photosynthesis relative to uninfested / healthy plants due to faster senescence in upper leaves and consequent increased light levels.

With the advancement in production of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) that are species specific the use of serological assay as a tool for assessing natural enemies has increased during the last decade (Greenstone 1996). Serological assay has been used widely overseas to estimate the potential of predators as biological control agents. It offers advantages over other predator assessment trials in that it provides a method of quickly screening a complex of predators and can be utilised to determine the stage of prey being consumed as well as the species of prey consumed. Furthermore, it offers a means of establishing when (at what time of year) predators are feeding on target prey. If high numbers of predators are found to consume target prey at certain times of a growing season the need for chemical control may be reduced at those times. This may aid in resistance management strategies.