The purpose of this paper is to outline the Australian cotton industry's concerns and position on the new US Farm Bill, currently being negotiated by the House of Representatives (House) and Senate and the potential ramifications for Australia, as an efficient producer and exporter of raw cotton. This paper will be used by an Australian Government and industry delegation that will visit Washington in early December to lobby against the Bill. The delegation will be led by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, The Honourable Warren Truss.

The efficacy of transgenic, 2,4-D tolerant cotton, developed by CSIRO has been field tested over the past 2 seasons on an irrigated field at Premer, on the Liverpool Plains of NSW. The material tested was a single transgenic line in the Coker 315 cultivar containing an introduced 2,4-D degradation gene and it showed good tolerance to 2,4-D, even at high rates. The effects of spraying both transgenic and normal plants with 2,4-D were monitored in the 1996/97 season using visual damage symptoms and dry matter production. Dry matter cuts taken at the end of the season indicated complete tolerance of the transgenic line to 2,4-D at up to twice the normal field rate when applied during the vegetative growth stage. Good tolerance was also observed at flowering and boll-fill stages.

In managing insect pests growers are today faced with increasing insecticide resistance, a lack of new chemistry and increasing production costs. The introduction of transgenic Bacillus thuringiensis,(BT- Cr1lAc), technology will allow a general reduction in insecticide use. However it is important to delay resistance to conventional chemistry for as long as possible, as their use will play a critical role in managing/delaying resistance to transgenic (Ingard), plants. Therefore using appropriate heliothis thresholds for Ingard crops is important

The confirmation of Fusarium wilt in a field north of Moree daring the 1996/7 season jolted the cotton industry. Major sections of industry were alarmed at the extent the disease had spread through many cotton production areas of Australia. Unlike most other diseases of cotton, Fusarium wilt poses more questions than answers on how the industry effectively manages and contains the disease in known affected areas. This paper concentrates on the industry's efforts to manage Fusarium wilt. In 1993 the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp vasinfectum (fov) was isolated from cotton plants from the Darling Downs, and 1994 from the Boggabilla district. This disease has now been identified at other locations at Mungindi, Boggabilla, Goondiwindi, Moree, and daring 1998 at Garah, Miles and Theodore. Fusarium wilt has not been recorded in Central Queensland, St George or cotton production areas in the Namoi and Macquarie Valleys of New South Wales. Two distinctly different strains of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp vasinfectum (Fov) - Downs and Boggabilla, have been identified.

Cotton was previously grown in the Ord during the 1960's and early 1970's. One major cause of the industry's demise was the development of insecticide resistance in Helicoverpa armigera (Heliothis). Although heliothis was not the major pest initially, pesticides targeting a range of other insects conferred resistance. Spray records indicate that whilst only 12 insecticide applications were required to grow the first crops, this rose to 21 sprays in 1971 and to an average of 40 sprays in the final season of 1974 (Michael and Woods 1980). As the development of genetically modified cotton (Ingard) progressed through the mid1990's, Department of Agriculture Western Australia, and Australian Cotton CRC scientists envisaged that it may be possible to develop a new cotton industry in the Ord. The new cotton industry would use integrated pest management (PM) and INGARD as the cornerstones of the system. Field trials evaluating PM systems commenced in 1996 and the first large scale trial(10-40ha) was conducted in 1997

Lablab was grown in two field experiments at Narrabri, NSW. The aim was to determine the effect of irrigation and N fertiliser on dry matter production and N fixation by lablab in order to assess its potential as a green manure crop for use within a cotton farming system. The experiments found that dry matter production, water-use efficiency (WUE) of dry matter production and the amount of N fixed by lablab was increased by more frequent irrigation. Optimal WUE of dry matter production was found to be 55 kg ha WUE of N fixation was not affected by irrigation frequency and was 0.62 kg ha mm. Lablab N fixation was reduced from a maximum of 189 to 95 kg N ha by increasing rates of N fertiliser from O to 240 kg N ha' . The WUE of lablab compares favourably with other crops. With full irrigation lablab has the potential to produce up to 16000 kg dry matter ha' and fix up to 189 kg N ha.

Cotton farmers have been adapting and changing their farming systems for as long as cotton has been grown. New machinery, new technology and streamlined management have all assisted in this process. But what of the future? Can we make further improvements? What factors and new information will drive to a more sustainable cotton farming system?

We have conducted experiments on this problem for five years, and summaries of this work have been reported at earlier cotton conferences (1994 and 1996) and in the CSD premature senescence grower information leaflet. In this paper we would like to focus on the topic of how damaging is premature senescence? Is it a problem that growers need to be concerned about, or is it just a sign of a high yielding crop?

New insecticide technology is needed in the Australian cotton production system to reduce reliance on old chemical groups and to maintain profitability. Conventional insecticides provide us with the backbone of insect control in cotton and will remain as integral and necessary tools for incorporation into integrated pest management (ERM) programs in the future. Several new classes of insecticides such as the oxadiazines, phenylpyrazoles, avennectins, neonicotinoids, spinosyns, pyrroles and diacylhydrazines have new modes of action and offer great pronxise for the future of insecticide resistance management (ERM) and IPM in cotton. Generally these toxicants are more environmentally acceptable than existing insecticide chemistry; because they offer greater specificity to target pests, have greater intrinsic activity, achieving acceptable insect control at low field use rates and because they degrade rapidly in the environment to harmless metabolites

The Australian cotton industry continues to face a major challenge in controlling heliothine caterpillars. As the bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera, has evolved resistance to most major chemical insecticides, interest in biological control agents has increased. Such agents would avoid the environmental dangers and costs associated with chemical insecticides. An important approach to using orally acting biological control agents that confer protection agains the bollworm is to genetically engineer cotton by inserting genes for the agents (Llewellyn et al 1992). The first genes available for use in this approach were those encoding the insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). INGARD-cotton carrying a Bt gene is now being grown commercially in Australia and will form the basis of heliothis control strategies (Llewellyn et al 1994). However, this current dependence on a single control gene means that an alternative form of resistance to heliothis would be of great interest. This would allow the careful management of the Bt gene now used in INGARD-cotton in order to retard the development of resistance and provide an insurance policy should resistance to Bt become insurmountable.