The aims of this project, viz: (i) To purchase an item of equipment necessary for the extraction and analyses of allelochemicals present in cotton varieties under evaluation for their rcsi~tance to insect pests (ii) To enhance the future biochemical capabilities of NARS

Funded by the Cotton Research and Development Corporation under the general topic "Physical and Chemical Studies of Cotton Fibre Maturity", the project has focused on searching for links between the morphological structure of the cotton fibre and its measured maturity.

CRDC project UNE15C provided for travel to Perth for The International Symposium on the Management of mycorrhizas in Agriculture, Horticulture and Forestry. This five day symposium presented information on current trends and achievements in international mycorrhizal research. Discussions concerning CRDC project UNE7C were held with other researchers. In particular, Dr Horst Marschner from Hohenheim University in Germany has subsequently provided unpublished information on a disease of 'grapes which has some similarities to the Galathera syndrome. A poster outlining some of the research from project UNE7C was presented at the symposium,

A workshop convened by the Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Pest Management at Narrabri on 7-8 December 1992 examined the feasibility, benefits, and funding implications of providing an operational forecasting service for heliothis. The workshop participants represented grower organisations, insecticide suppliers, pest-control services, and rural-industry research funding bodies, along with state-government, CSIRO, and university scientists. 2. The workshop focussed especially on the question of forecasting spring infestations of the native budworm Helicoverpa punctigera, a serious pest of various legume crops (especially lupins in Western Australia and field peas in Victoria), and the main early-season pest of cotton. It is now known that these infestations are initiated by immigrants from the far inland, where a research programme now approaching completion has located very large numbers of caterpillars on native vegetation during 3 of the last 4 winters. These inland populations emerge as moths in August-September, and are carried into cropping regions by the wind; damage is caused either by the offspring of these moths (in legume crops), or by the subsequent (second} generation (in cotton)

Despite the broad title, the project has concentrated on transverse dimensions of fibres, notably maturity in all of its aspects. There is no consensus about the definition of maturity, only a rough idea of what it means to the cotton market and to spinning mills and dyeing plants. Consequently, he has tested a range of 59 cottons, or in some instances a selection of 14

Project Objective: A new project with the objectives of: * to supply equipment to accurately weigh cotton from field trips. * to assist regional adaptive research including implementation of the CRDC Variety Trials Protocol.,

The project was intended to collect germplasm of two of the wild relatives of cotton, Gossypium australe and G. sturtianum from eastern Australia, and to initiate a seed bank of these species.,

An insecticide resistance management (IRM) strategy was introduced into the summer rainfall cropping areas of eastern Australia in the 1983/84 season. The aims of this IRM strategy were to manage pyrethroid and endosulfan resistance problems in Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner), formerly Heliothis armigera (Hubner), and to avoid any possible future problems with organophosphate or carbamate resistance. An alternation strategy was adopted which was based on the rotation of unrelated chemical groups on a per generation basis, along with a strong recommendation for the use of ovicidal mixtures. These chemical countermeasures were then incorporated into an acceptable integrated pest management (IPM) programme. The voluntary restrictions were applied to all crops susceptible to H. armigera. They were even applied to other co-incident pest species on these hosts, such as sorghum midge Contarinia sorghicola (Coquillet) (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), as it was shown that pyrethroids applied to flowering sorghum for midge control caused selective mortality of co-incident H. armigera larvae and resulted in differential selection for resistance. The demonstration of the independence of the endosulfan and pyrethroid resistance mechanisms vindicated the sequential use of these two groups in Stages I and II of the IRM strategy, respectively

OBJECTIVES 1. To establish Helicoverpa species composition in the Macquarie Valley and to relate the data to that from other cotton growing areas in NSW and Queensland. 2. To determine insecticide resistance levels in the Macquarie Valley and to relate the data to that from other cotton growing areas in NSW and Queensland. 3.To trial biochemical resistance detection methods in H. am1igera.,

The objectives of this project were to evaluate the potential of larval parasitoids, principally Microplitis, for use in biological control programs against Helicoverpa spp. and to introduce and monitor the establishment of exotic larval parasitoids of Helicoverpa spp