Cotton prices vary for all sorts of reasons including seasonal conditions in major producing countries, exchange rate changes, world economic conditions and of course government subsidies and market distortions. To progress trade reforms it is important to show how Government policies and subsidies adversely impact on world prices and prices in individual countries. What then needs to be achieved is an understanding of the influence of price reductions caused by Government induced market distortions on producers and cotton producing regions as well as consumers. No useful conclusions can be drawn if the focus is on the effects of low prices per se.

Low prices in the international marketplace for cotton will affect producers in a similar way to low prices in most sectors.

That is lower prices potentially cause lower returns to producers who will feed those returns through to any of reduced employment and production or reduced investment in infrastructure. This will lead further to changes in government and economy wide income and have effects on revenues, employment and output industries that are part of the sector's value chain. These price effects would not be unique to the cotton industry.The ICAC approach of gathering data is important in quantifying impacts on domestic economies. However, mand of itself, the information is not valuable in achieving anything to alleviate the effects. The working group information needs to be utilised to establish the 'cause' of the lower prices and, in particular, the extent to which world cottonprices are reduced because of government induced market distortions. This analysis can then be taken a step further to identify the implications of market distortions for producers incomes, and for the economies of cotton producing regions.

Trap cropping is an established technology within many IPM systems for a broad range of

crops. Successful trap crops act as diversionary hosts for key pests, attracting and

concentrating the pests and their eggs into a relatively small area where the population can be controlled. Typically trap crops are 'suicide' crops that are destroyed prior to harvest in order to kill pests trapped within them. Trap cropping programs aim to reduce egg densities on the primary crop(s) on an areawide basis, resulting in an overall reduction in management costs for individual farms.

Interest in establishing areawide trap cropping programs has grown within the Australian cotton industry, following the success of the Central Queensland trap cropping program initiated by Dr Richard Sequelra as part of the INGARD resistance management plan. Results suggested that substantial populations of Helicoverpa could be captured and destroyed by chickpea and pigeon pea trap crops.

This project set outto quantify the effectiveness of trap crops and measure the impact of trap crops on egg densities in surrounding cotton.

The Cotton Rivers and Climate Change project assesses the impacts of climate change on water resources in the Gwydir, Border and Condamine-Balonne River Systems of north-east NSW and southern Queensland. The project has been undertaken by Hassall & Associates, CSIRO Atmospheric Research, NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation (DLWC) and Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines (QNR&M). The project has been funded by the Cotton Research and Development Corporation, with in-kind contributions from DLWC and QNR&M.

Three climate scenarios have been generated for the year 2030: “base”, “average” and “dry” scenarios. The scenarios represent plausible outcomes rather than predictions. The scenarios provide changes to rainfall and potential evaporation (predominately through temperature increases), at a regional scale. This modified climatic data is then used to assess the effects of projected climate change scenarios on streamflow and modified crop demand. The process used 1993/94 systems of allocating water between different users, including the allocations to the environment and diversions for irrigation.

The cornmonly used Micronaire value for cotton is related to both fibre fineness and maturity. There is a need for a new measurement technique to separate these. This is of particular importance to the Australian industry where varieties of fine, mature cotton have the potential to be wrongfully discounted commercially by misinterpreting a low Micronaire value as indicating immaturity in a coarser fibre.

A preliminary CRDC funded project (CRDC Project CSWTIC), demonstrated that the Sirolan-Laserscan, in a novel mode of operation, is able to measure the fineness of cotton fibres independent of fibre maturity.

Following this, a paper on the preliminary results of the technique was presented to the USA

Beltwide meeting in January 1999 and also Dr Geoff Naylor visited and had in-depth

discussions with the other key researchers in this area at the USDA in New Orleans (CRDC

Project CSWT 2C). The main outcome was that there is general agreement that the new

Sirolan-Laserscan approach has significant potential as a viable technique for measuring

cotton fibre fineness. Further, it is thought that it might easily be possible to extend the

approach to yield fibre maturity information by combining the results from this approach with the current micronaire measurement.

FUSCOM has always been an excellent means to encourage collaboration between research groups within Australia and communicate research activities to various groups. But one of the greatest assets of this meeting is the discussions on where there are gaps in our knowledge and what research needs to be conducted to address these issues. For example, this year renifonn nematode was detected in cotton and was determined to be widespread in Theodore. The cotton industry has never faced this issue before. Verticillium wilt in recent years has become increasing1y more severe and the possibility that new strains are present was raised. Boll rots are increasing in incidence and severity in Central Queensland. New projects funded by CRDC are commencing to research these new issues, however to assist in tackling these problems, collaboration with international researchers who have experienced these issues, would benefit Australian research.

It may be difficult due to Government policy on international travel and expensive, for pathologists from Australia to travel overseas to meet with experts on reniform nematode, verticillium wilt, boll rots, viruses etc. However, it would be possible to invite four experts from overseas to attend an International FUSCOM workshop to address very specific pathology issues current in Australian cotton.

The workshop will be held over two and a half days with focussed presentations from international guests and Australian pathologists targeting current pathology issues and potential future issues. Four international pathologists will be invited to cover the breadth of current RD&E activity relating to cotton pathology (including nematodes). The workshop will follow a similar format to previous FUSCOM workshops, however with a more targeted approach. The workshop will also provide for informal interaction at the welcome reception and in the evenings.

The aim of this workshop is to create and facilitate opportunities for national and international RD&E exchange. There will also be opportunities for participants to liaise with international guests before and after the workshop.

A pre-workshop tour of cotton growing regions will also take place, to enable our international guests to visit growers to get a better understanding of our farming practices and problems which will be invaluable to assist our guests to better address management strategies that suit our cropping systems.

Dryland group of concerned growers * Central Queensland early planting trial and field walk * Weeds Update * Nitrogen trials *What is happening at ACRI

The majority of Australia’s cotton producing soil is grey or black vertosols which have high clay content and are naturally prone to waterlogging following heavy rain or surface irrigation. Waterlogging events can lead to the loss of the excess applied nitrogen, these losses have been reported to be up to 50-100 kg N/ha (Rochester, 2003). Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) production in Australian relies heavily on the application of irrigation water, and therefore there are many possible events for large nitrogen losses within a single growing season. Poor irrigation management or old inefficient irrigation infrastructure would also increase the potential nitrogen lost from an irrigation system. Janat (2008) found that modern irrigation application methods (such as drip irrigation) could improve Water Use Efficiency (WUE) by up to 30%.

The findings of this project showed that cotton management strategies influence the nitrogen cycle within an irrigated cotton system. Management options such as switching the furrow that is irrigated, the volume of water applied during an irrigation event and optimising nitrogen and water application, influenced the crop uptake of nitrogen and the amount of nitrogen (and its associated gases, such as nitrous oxide) lost from the system. Of the 36 kg N/ha that was lost from irrigation tail water through the cotton season 50% was lost at the first irrigation event. Developing strategies and best management practices (BMP) to reduce the effect of the first irrigation would have a significant impact on reducing the emissions from an irrigated cotton farm.

The agronomic management options that were investigated in this project could be applied with little to no impact on the farming operation. Such as irrigating down the furrow that had the fertiliser direct drilled and increasing the volume of applied water in the first irrigation event. These management options reduced the nitrogen lost in the tail water (up to 50%), while importantly had no impact on farm productivity (cotton yield).

Cotton consultants have been reluctant to monitor levels of egg parasitisin, primarily because of the tiine involved in collecting eggs. A new ratio, called the Beneficial Impact Ratio (BIR) was proposed to assist consultants in understanding in-field mortality due to

egg parasitoids without having to collect eggs. The BIR is the ratio of young larvae (Vs+S) to eggs. IdealIy the egg counts that are used in the BIR calculation should be from counts that were completed 2-4 days prior to the larval counts. However same day counts call be used to estimate in-field egg and young larval mortality. The lower the BIR the better, e. g. a BIR of almost zero was recorded when the levels of egg parasitisim were high.

On farm sorghum appeared to affect the abundance of egg parasitoids in nearby cotton, as high levels of egg parasitism were found in the sorghum immediately prior to those recorded in the cotton. There were also several plantings of sorghum on the farm. This sorghum provided a regular supply of eggs that supported substantial populations of Trichogramma.

The unsprayed INGARD cotton yielded just as well as the sprayed INGARD because:

- The Bt. toxin in the plant was effective against very small larvae early-mid season.

- The populations of beneficial species built up in the absence of chemical sprays. High numbers of predators (over 20/m) were recorded late season.

-Trichogramma were abundant from mid-late January onwards. Cotton plants have a natural ability to compensate for fruit loss.

The above factors combined represent successful, sustainable IPM.Intervention with chemical insecticides is not always required.

The success of IPM depends on not disrupting parasitoids and predators with chemicals. It is not enough to go soft early, because beneficials really come to the fore until mid-late season. If you are serious about IPM you must strive to avoid multiple applications of organophosphates and synthetic pyrothroids because they are extremely disruptive to beneficials, including Trichogramma. The impact of Trichogramma on the Darling Downs will become more noticeable as the use of broad spectrum chemical sprays throughout the region declines. Some insecticides, such as Dipel and Gemstar, are safe on Trichogramma, and should be used to control heliothis larvae whenever possible. All cotton growers and consultants should try to collect eggs and develop an appreciation for the Trichogramma, they are amazing little wasps!

The phosphorus dynamics of dryland cotton production require further elucidation, particularly the role of residual fertiliser P and mycorrhizal infection in yield. Incitec Pivot Ltd., in collaboration with independent researchers, has conducted a long term farming systems experiment at Tulloona , NSW , since 1995. The experiment is a complete randomised block, split plot, design with the treatments being 0 , 10, 20 kg/ha P and 0, 30, 60 , 90, 120 kg/ha N : and all permutations of the above. Nutrients, as urea and MAP, have been applied either pre or at plant for each crop planted, and rotations have included, sorghum , mungbean, wheat, chickpeas, and barley, throughout the duration of the project. The site is responsive to both N and P, with background Colwell P values > 10mg/kg, and with soil N levels varying depending on fallow mineralisation.

For the 2014/15 summer the rotation crop chosen for the site will be raingrown cotton. This will follow rain grown wheat sown June 2013. There has previously been very little previous experimentation investigating performance of raingrown cotton under these scenarios, and in this region. With soil test Colwell P values showing residual soil P levels ranging from 10 mg/kg P where no P has been applied, to 98 mg/kg following annual 20 kg P/ha applications.

This provides an ideal, and unique, scenario to investigate cotton crop performance under a range of residual P values, but also to investigate whether applied fertiliser P at sowing is providing a crop response or if labile P being released into solution is in fact the primary source of P. This experiment will also assist with validation of soil test critical values investigating current soil P test extraction methods such as Colwell P, BSES P, and less commonly used on Grey Vertisols DGT P. Core sampling throughout the trial will also allow quantification of the effect of P status on mycorrhizal colonisation of cotton following a 12 month fallow. the full report is available.

CottonMap is currently an ongoing annual investment.

The Cotton Field Awareness Map pinpoints the location of cotton fields, to assist in minimising off-target damage from downwind pesticide application, particularly during summer fallow spraying. The CottonMap is an industry initiative, which the farming community from farmers to consultants and contractors are encouraged to use. The map is a joint collaboration between Cotton Australia, Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC), Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and Nufarm Australia Limited, developed to meet industry needs.

2014-15 was the first season where the area mapped on CottonMap equated to 100% of the

planted hectares for the season, however the figure of >100% mapped indicates a need to increase accuracy of the program. Cotton Australia have focussed extension efforts to improve this. Late mapping has been identified as an issue.