This paper reports the initial results from testing different versions of the SIRATAC pest management system in the Namoi Valley for two seasons the experiments were designed to investigate the ability of the program to manipulate crop earliness according to criteria set by the crop manager.

The cotton bollworm, Heliothis armiger is a very important cotton pest in Australia. It has a long history of insecticide resistance in Australia, to DDT in the early 1970's and to the pyrethroids in 1983,.In 1976, entomologists from the New South Wales Department of Agriculture at Tamworth began a nation wide resistance monitoring program for H. armiger. Each year Heliothis, collected mainly from New South Wales and Queensland cotton sites, are sent to the Tamworth Agricultural Research Centre for testing. The progeny from the moths in each sample are reared.in the laboratory on an artificial diet and are tested with insecticides when they reach 30-40 mg weight. Varying concentrations of insecticides dissolved in solvents, are tested against Heliothis by putting a I ul drop on each caterpillar back and count the number dead after 48 or 72.hours. Mortality is plotted against concentration and we calculate the.LD50 (the concentration required to kill 50% of the test group) and the slope of the line (a measure of the variation of response to the insecticide)..We test all insecticides which are used against H. armiger and those with potential for use.

Different cultivars are now becoming commercially available including Australian bred cultivars, and cotton growers now have a choice of which cultivar to plant. Hence, the question is, do the different cotton growing regions in Australia require different cultivars, and which cultivars are best adapted to each of these regions?

With the appearance of pvrethroid resistance in Heliothis armigera during the 1992/3 cropping season a strategy aimed at limiting the development of widespread resistance was rapidly implemented .H. armigera had previously shown a propensity to a acquire high levels of resistance to other insecticides (e.g. DDT). As part of a number of studies on the genetics and ecology of pvrethroid resistance the work described here was commenced to evaluate the biological fitness of resistant individuals relative to their susceptible counterparts.

In 1981 we released SICOT 3 to the industry. This variety is distinguished by glabrous (ultra-smooth) leaves and stems, and frego bracts (these morphological characteristics and their effects on pests are described in another paper - "Host Plant resistance Studies at Narrabri Research Station by myself, Peter Reid and Gary Fitt). However, besides advantages of Heliothis resistance and fibre quality, these characteristics are associated with less desirable agronomic effects such.as increased vegetativeness and delayed maturity. They also appear to be associated with higher sensitivity to some members of the bug complex, further accentuating rankness of growth and delayed maturity if these pests are not controlled.

A knowledge of dispersal is essential to an understanding of population control and to the management of insecticide resistance. The Division of Entomology, CSIRO, is undertaking ecological studies and radar observations to quantify dispersal of Heliothis moths at a range of.altitudes over crops. We are interested both in assessing the value of radar in following low-level movement, and in determining the type of population data that need to be collected to interpret observations made by the radar. A preliminary study in the Darling Downs during February 1984 included direct observations of the frequency, magnitude and direction of movement, and indirect assessments of such movements using various types of trapping.

Boggabri cotton grower, Andrew Watson, has shown that with optimal growth rates, a healthy population of beneficial predators and a plant monitoring approach, it is possible to grow a Bollgard II crop without (or with significantly reduced reliance on) insecticides.

South East Queensland farmer Engelbert Krampl first encountered glyphosate resistant barnyard grass in his cropping system in the summer of 2008-09.

This Guide provides you with a comprehensive summary of the key cotton crop protection issues, and is brought to you by the Australian cotton industry's joint extension program, CottonInfo.

The International Society of Chemical Ecology (ISCE) exists to promote the understanding of interactions between organisms and their environment that are mediated by naturally occurring chemicals. Research areas covered by this include the chemistry, biochemistry and function of natural products, their importance at all levels of ecological organization, their evolutionary origin and their practical application.My particular interest in chemical ecology is in the application of sex pl~cronionesto control Helicoverpa armigera in cotton and other crops.