The world's textile industry has gone through structural changes and there are rapid moves toward industrial reorganization in Asian countries in pursue of the progress in the developed countries. Since producers in China are reinforcing low pricing by large scale operation through integration and equipment expansion, it is essential that the Australian cotton industry to develop better and better quality cotton for the high quality yam manufacturers targeting for the value added textile products to remain in the market; and hence our topic of the day: &quote;Competitiveness through product excellence&quote;.

Knowledge of the quantity of water draining below the root-zone is necessary in order to maximise and ensure sustainable water use, particularly when surface water is applied for irrigated agricultural production. Traditionally, this has been based on soil hydraulic properties which whether measured directly or correlated with soil morphological properties, is difficult, time-consuming and expensive to determine (Shaw, 1988). Shaw and Thorbum (1985) indicated that soil leaching is closely related to hydraulic conductivity (K) and that important soil properties that influence K, including; clay content, clay mineralogy (cation exchange Capacity/Clay % Ratio, CCR) and exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP), can be used to predict Ieaching fraction (LF) and deep drainage (DD). As a consequence an empirical model was developed into a program called Sodium-SaLF, which provides estimates of LF, DD and average root zone EC, at steady-state, based on these laboratory measured soil properties that are generally collected during soil surveys (ie. CEC and clay content). A small number of water quality parameters, such as EC, , depth of irrigation water applied and annual rainfall, as well as the crop being grown is also required by the model. Estimating deep drainage on the field-scale is complicated because of the relatively large spatial variation of soil. Over the last decade clay content (Williams and Hoey, 1987); depth to clay (Doolittleet al, 1994) and Ieaching fraction (Slavich and Yang, 1987) have been estimated using Electromagnetic instruments. Here we demonstrate the use of a Mobile Electromagnetic Sensing System developed by Triantafilis and MCBratney (1998) and its potential in estimating deep drainage and average soil EC, at steady state using EC, data and soil information coupled to a salt and leaching fraction model or Sodium-SaLF (Shaw and Thorbum, 1995). The research was carried out in a irrigated cotton field in the lower Gwydir valley, Australia.

Soil fauna have generally remained an 'unseen' resource to Australian cotton growers. No studies have investigated the effects of cotton fanning practices and insecticides on beneficial soil fauna since the 1970's (Bishop and Blood, 1977 & 1980; Room, 1979). This study (Lytton-Hitchins, 1998) was a baseline biodiversity survey of the principal soil faunal groups found in irrigated cotton fields of north western New South Wales. Field work was conducted on commercial cotton farms located in the Macquarie, lower Nanioi, and Gwydir valleys. The various growers and agronomists involved were practitioners of innovative and 'best management' practices. Fields sampled differed in (i) the age of cotton production and (it) the crop protection practices used to control insect pests. Some field experiments were conducted using whole cotton fields that were unreplicated, whilst others used large replicated plots within whole fields on commercial cotton farms. At the Australian Cotton Research institute (ACRl), a small field with replicate plots of Envirofeast cotton and lucerne was also sampled. Standardised experimental designs were devised and sampling equipment constructed. Surface active species were collected using pitfall traps, visual ground searching, and hand collection. Pitfall trapping periods were usually aligned with irrigation cycles. Extensive field observations were included to determine species-specific behavioural patterns, identify key refugia, and collect species that might avoid pitfall traps. Soil cores were used to sample soil fauna in rhizosphere soil to a depth of 150 mm. Springtails, soil-dwelling beetles, ants, and earwigs were considered in detail, and identified to species or morphological-species. Beetles and earwigs were assigned 'reported' feeding habits, and ants and springtails allocated to functional groups.

Insecticide application to control heIiothis on cotton is rapidly becoming a major production cost for field crops, particularly cotton, in central Queensland (CQ). Chemical protection of cotton crops is frequently required for more than 3/4 of the season. The intensive use of insecticides for heliothis control in cotton has led to an alarming rise in levels of resistance to many currently used insecticides (Fitt 1994, Gunning 1996). Insecticidal control of heliothis now costs many cotton growers in CQ in excess of $700/ha per season

The release of INGARD&quote;' cotton has presented the opportunity to study grower attitudes to the control and distribution of genetic material protected by plant and technology patents and trademarks. INGARD' cotton is the first major release of this type in Australia where growers have to enter into legally binding contracts ( licenses ) to use the plant. This study has been undertaken as part of a PhD program funded by a University Scholarship. The first survey was conducted in June 1997 and followed preliminary interviews and information gathering primarily in the Gwydir Valley. The survey focused on growers attitudes regarding issues involved with the release of the transgenic cotton INGARD. A total of 29 responses were received; 19 from growers of both conventional and INGARD cotton and 10 from growers of conventional cotton. Data collected was analyzed on SPSS (a statistical analysis package). Frequency distributions were tabulated to reveal the strength and range of responses to questions. Factor analysis was undertaken on sets of questions to find associations within the sets which affect the adoption of the technology. The size growers' of plantings varied from 40 hectares to 5600 hectares of conventional cotton with about half below 700 hectares and half above 1300 hectares. Some INGARD growers were growing seed crops as well as INGARD under commercial licenses and some growers had more than one INGARD license because they have more than one property. INGARD areas varied from 28 hectares to 570 hectares. The format of the questions varied from yes/no answers to others in which growers were asked to rate their response on a scale of I to 7 (one reflecting low importance or low acceptability and seven reflecting high importance or high acceptability). There is a possible area of ambiguity in this if the respondent did not closely follow the question because importance of a factor and acceptability of a factor can have an inverse relationship. Growers were asked to include comments if they felt this helped in their response. The comments received were wide ranging and provided insight into growers' thoughts. Unfortunately this paper is too short to include the comments although they support the general trend in responses. Further analysis will be conducted on the comments and a full transcripts available in the longer version of this paper.

In 1998 when we first started Benchmarking we were not sure what we were going to find. At the time the Darling Downs In particular had suffered a number of years of rising insect pressure and insect control costs, Ingard was just being released with mixed results and insect resistance was rising rapidly. The long term economic sustainability of growing cotton was being threatened. The objective we set at the beginning of the CotBench. Benchmarking Program was &quote;to provide cotton growers with a quality analysis, as well as the motivation and support to evaluate their cotton operation's gross margin and to take action to improve their profitability and sustainability'

In recent years community interest in the development of the irrigation industry throughout Australia has increased significantly. furlong these industries it has been the cotton industry that has been most notable in its water infrastructure and management systems development. This has happened during a period in which governments, particularly the Federal Government, have retreated from infrastructure development. So we in the cotton industry, as well as those in other irrigation industries, have picked up the ball and undertaken massive private investment in water infrastructure development. Naturally the private investor has been most keen to invest in schemes that are not subject to government controls and legislation. As a result, we have seen particularly in Queensland in recent years, a dramatic increase in the numbers of on-farm storages built to harvest unregulated overland flow. Now in 1998 community scrutiny of privately developed water infrastructure is higher than ever before and the development of appropriate regulation measures, if any at all, has become a major challenge for every State government.

The Australian cotton industry now has a new version of the SOILpak manual.

The silverleaf whitefly (SLW), Bemisia tabaci B-biotype, was first discovered in Australia in 1994 (Gunning et al 1995). SLW is a major pest of cotton and other crops in many overseas countries and poses a considerable threat to cotton in Australia. SLW is the second biotype of B. tabaci be found in Australia. A closely related indigenous biotype (IBW) was first recorded from Australia in 1959 (Carver and Reid 1996). Molecular phylogenetic studies (De Barro unpublished data) indicate that IBW is unique to Australia and some near Pacific Island countries. IBW is an efficient vector of tomato geminiviruses that were extremely damaging to the Northern Territory tomato industry, but unlike SLW does not cause feeding related damage. Since its detection, SLW has spread widely in New South Wales and Queensland. However, its spread into the cotton growing regions of both states has been slower than in the areas dominated by vegetable horticulture. Given the threat posed by SLW to cotton in Queensland a monitoring system using surveys was established and has been run over the past two years

Traditional methods of generating soil information on the field scale have involved the design and adoption of soil sampling regimes and laboratory analysis. Due to the time consuming nature of this approach only limited soil information can be collected. Nevertheless, soil maps are generated and inferences about the spatial distribution of soil properties, and soil condition etc. are made from this cursory information. Unfortunately, the use of such maps leads to errors in interpretation and possibly soil management. In more specific investigations such as soil salinity assessment and determination of irrigation\drainage efficiency more detailed quantitative soil information is required, in order to provide the necessary information to manage soil salinity or related problems.