In New South Wales the relationship between the cotton industry and waterways is a feature of the industry. Most of the cotton grown in the State occurs on the floodplains of, and is irrigated with water from, the Macintyre, Gwydir, Namoi, Barwon and Macquarie Rivers.

Regulations over the use of pesticides in cotton production have been in existence ever since that industry emerged in Australia. Initially regulations were simple, however, as the industry has grown there has been a parallel growth in the environmental awareness within the general community and the arrival of environmental lobby groups. Part of government response to pressures brought about by such groups and the increased use of pesticides has been the upgrading of legislative controls over pesticide use.

This article presents some of the results of the weed survey, which was conducted in 1989, covering 67 600 ha, representing 48% of the NSW cotton area, and involving 52 growers. The survey used a set format, but involved an interview where a wide range of issues were discussed.

WATERSCHED has been developed by research and extension agronomists from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and uses a water balance approach to schedule irrigations. The water balance is based on an estimation of crop water use, from climatic data, according to crop growth stage.

This paper summarises a large number of strength and compression tests in a range of cotton soils. The soils were sampled at a number of locations from Warren to Emerald and varied considerably in their characteristics. They were tested over a wide range of moisture con tents, densities and saturations.

The SOILpak project so far has concentrated on the grey and brown cracking clay soils used for cotton production. The aim of the project has been to collate the vast amount of information available on these soil types into a usable form. Many papers have been written and submitted to reputable journals and a lot of information resides within people's minds. The SOILpak team's aim has been to extract and gather the relevant information and present it in a single package.

AIMS 1. To extend the understanding of compaction/degradation of Namoi grey clays (developed in previous project) to cover the range of soil types important for irrigated cotton. 2. To classify the various soil types according to their susceptibility to degradation under a given set of conditions. 3. Hence to provide consultants, extension workers with guidelines for assessing compaction susceptibility of their soil types.

This project has achieved its stated goals in that a gene which confers tolerance to 2,4-D has been isolated and engineered for expression in plants. Good tolerance levels were observed in a model plant species and efforts have now turned to cotton. The project will therefore be funded through our genetic engineering of cotton project for which a separate application will be made in the 1990/91 financial year .

The objective of this project was to acquire graphics hardware and software to allow computerised production of high quality graphs, diagrams and maps for reports, publications and conferences.

The first aim of this project was to define a protocol by which regeneration of cotton plants from tissue culture can be consistently and regularly achieved