The purpose of the travel was to present a talk entitled “Wet Roots? High resolution groundwater depth prediction in the Bourke Irrigation District” at the 9th international River Symposium in Brisbane. I was representing the CCC CRC as a finalist in the Young water scientist of the year award 2006. The competition was a national one open to all CRC students undertaking research into a water related topic.The major outcome and highlight was winning the National award for 2006. The award was judged both on a written submission as well as the presentation. In addition to this I gave a plenary speech after accepting my award. A major outcome was demonstrating to the wider community that the cotton industry is actively addressing the i to do this.

Cotton has been looked to be a commercial crop in the Northern Territory on several occasions over the last 100 years, firstly as a wet season crop and more recently (in the last 25 years) as a dry season (winter) crop. The recent success of a hybrid model of crops planted in the wet and finished in the dry at Kununurra and the developments in the Georgetown region of Queensland has reignited interest in growing cotton in the Northern Territory.

A few commercial crops have been planted as well as demonstration crops at Katherine Research Station. The main issue in the Northern Territory is a complete lack of understanding of the cotton production system and to an extent, limited exposure good agricultural practices associated with broadacre farming as there has been limited development of a cropping industry in the Northern Territory.The Projects objectives were to introduce new and potential cotton growers to the best practise methods for cotton from the Southern Queensland and Northern NSW growing regions. With a focus on both dryland and irrigation, with an emphasis on the most suited irrigation methods for the Northern soil and climatic conditions.

Other important factors to be investigated will include crop management, surface water development and the development of a cropping system that has cotton as a cornerstone crop.

This project was established to look at various aspects of insecticides in cotton and the factors that would directly affect decision making. Helicoverpa spp. are still the primary pests of cotton in Australia. Chemical control available for these pests consisted of a limited selection of conventional insecticides. These insecticides were from key chemical groups still used by the industry include carbamates, organophosphates and synthetic pyrethroids and because of their broad-spectrum activity they significantly disrupt most predators and parasites (Wilson et al., 1998), and in some cases have a negative environmental impact. Frequent chemical spraying resulted in the development of resistance to some of these chemicals by Helicoverpa spp., eg. carbamates and synthetic pyrethroids. To counter resistance issues, new insecticides are being developed and registered for control of Helicoverpa in cotton. This new generation of insecticides are promoted as being more selective, less disruptive to beneficial and therefore more compatible with IPM (Holloway, J., Forrester, N., 1998). Cotton growers now have the choice of selecting from “old” and “new” insecticides when deciding to apply insecticides. Knowing the efficacy of individual insecticides against the target pest species is insufficient to make these decisions. It is also important to have knowledge of how these insecticides impact on other pests, predators and parasitoids. Strategic use of conventional insecticides in an IPM strategy will not only assure their efficacy but also prolong their existence for cotton insect management programs. Therefore, “old” and “new” insecticides should be rotated and placed in a way that they will perform effectively and soundly within the integrated pest management (IPM) and the integrated resistance management (IRM) strategies.

Industry Development Officer (IDO) of Warren is part of the Australian Cotton National Extension Team. As well as playing a role in national extension activity, the position works with local growers and consultants to develop extension programs focusing on local production issues. This position will facilitate increased technology adoption by local growers.

Large scale farm trials / demonstrations form a critical component of extension activities. The promotion of BMP to growers and the local community are also key components of this position. The position provides strong links between growers, consultants and researchers.

The position is pivotal in the promotion of IPM systems and assists adoption through the development of a number of IPM support groups in the Macquarie Valley. The further development of this concept, as area wide management groups, will be a key component of the project over the next three years.

Drought is one of these natural weather phenomena set to accelerate that causes massive losses to agricultural crops, increase land degradation, reduce clean water supplies and thereby inducing malnutrition and starvation, and jeopardise global food security. One potential mitigation is the development of drought resilience in typical cropping soils by using a form of Negative Emissions Technology (NET) called Enhanced Weathering (EW), which is the application of silicate rockdust to soil and/or water. This paper will investigate the ability of rockdust to increase the water holding capacity of two typical Queensland cropping soils and also examine the silicon release from each type of rockdust, as silicon is an important plant element in drought resistance. This paper investigates the potential of Enhanced Weathering (EW), a form of Negative Emissions Technology (NET) to increase the soil moisture holding capacity of two types of Australian cropping soil by application of specific silicate rocks (geomaterials) in rockdust form. The geomaterials of focus are vesicular basalt, bentonite clay, pumice and zeolite.

The aim of this study is twofold, firstly to investigate the potential for specific types of naturally-occurring rocks and minerals (vesicular basalt, pumice, bentonite, zeolite) to improve soil moisture-holding capacity of common Australian cropping soils. Secondly, to analyse the nutrient release of the geomaterial in leached soil with particular focus on silicon.Climate change means that future projections of extreme weather events are set to escalate in frequency and intensity. Four types of geomaterials will be used for rockdust: vesicular basalt; bentonite clay; pumice and zeolite. Using six application rates control (0t/ha), 5 t/ha, 10 t/ha, 20 t/ha, 40 t/ha and 100 t/ha and overnight oven temperatures of 30°C, 35°C, 40°C, 45°C, 50°C, 55°C and 60°C, each treatment started at field capacity. Total water loss was calculated inclusive of soil moisture, geomaterial moisture and water added for field capacity. Initially, there were no clear results indicating that the geomaterials reduced water loss. The bentonite treatments developed cracking at higher temperatures and condensation was evident on the inside of the all of the containers. It was noted that the weights of each treatment were continually decreasing on the scales hinting that water loss had not reached its equilibrium. Further experimentation revealed that the treatments required 6-8 days in the oven to reach this equilibrium, which would be more reflective of drought conditions. However, a final experiment that focused on the sandier soil with bentonite applied at higher rates did conclude with a definite reduction of water loss at 40°C. Nutrient testing on the soils showed that zeolite released the highest amounts of silicon in leached Quilpie soil, however, silicon was not released in the soil water of the Mungindi soil.

Helicoverpa armigera shows a much higher tolerance than Heliothis virescens towards the Cry lAc toxin present in INGARD and BOLLGARD II cotton. Unlike H. virescens, the major pest of cotton in the USA, some H. armigera are able to survive on INGARD cotton as the plants mature. This survival increases the risk of resistance development.

The impact of proteases in the insect gut was identified as a possible explanation of the higher tolerance of H. armigera. This project contributed to testing the hypothesis by identifying the initial cleavage sites in the Cry1Ac toxin exposed to the gut juices of H. armigera. The two major peptide fragments from the digest were separated and the most likely initial cleavage site was identified from the sequence of the fragments and computer-assisted modelling of the three dimensional structure of the toxin. These analyses showed that the initial cleavage was made by chymotrypsin whereas trypsin is the main protease in the H. armigera gut.

With the identification of the amino acid that is the target for the first cleavage in the Cry1Ac toxin, it is now possible to determine if protease activity is the basis for the higher tolerance in H. armigera. It will then be possible to modify the toxin gene slightly to make the toxin more stable in the H. armigera gut. Use of an appropriately modified gene in cotton would make it more effective than INGARD and BOLLGARD II in reducing the risk of resistance. This thesis is available from the CRDC Library.

The CQ Cotton IDO is the key to delivery of emerging, cutting edge research information and knowledge to the Central Queensland Cotton Industry. The direct relevance of southern research to cotton production under the conditions experienced in CQ always has been an issue of debate. This project links the national research to the region through development and extension, with a strong focus on the major industry production issues including but not limited to; disease, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), soils, nutrition and integrated weed management. This project has facilitated locally based research into the CQ Cotton Farming System, in particular focussing on optimising planting date, in terms of yield, quality and use of in-crop rainfall. The CQ IDO position also supports the implementation of national industry-wide programmes such as Best Management Practices (BMP). The CQ IDO position has contributed to the National Cotton Extension Team. This team works on an industry-wide scale and takes a knowledge management approach to deliver grower focused adoption and extension programmes primarily through the Cotton CRC National Priority Teams.

This project used market research to determine the extension needs for healthy soils irrigated cotton areas in NSW and Queensland. Existing information was collated and reshaped into an extension program consisting of training workshops, field days, regional soil forums, published case studies and on farm demonstration sites.

The extension program provided relevant regional information, primarily targeted at agribusiness, consultants, irrigated cotton and grain growers, government agency staff and regional natural resource management bodies.

Twelve case studies were published. A soils web page was rejuvenated on the Cotton Catchment Communities CRC web site and materials were provided to the National Healthy Soils Knowledge Bank. The project financed ten growers and consultants to enable them to attend the National Healthy Soils Forum.

Three regional healthy soil forums were held in Goondiwindi, Narrabri and Hillston.They were well attended with 74 per cent of respondents stating the forums had provided them with information that would change the way they would farm in the future.

Fifteen training workshops on soil nutrition, soil pits, understanding soil testing and property planning were delivered to agribusiness, consultants and farmers. 75 per cent of respondents thought the information in the workshops would increase their profitability, 88 per cent thought it would increase their sustainability and 100 per cent thought the workshops proposed useful indicators to assess soil health.

Other outcomes included:

• Practice change and intended practice change by irrigated cotton and grain managers and landholders

• Improved knowledge of R&D managers and extension providers through market research to ensure well targeted research

• Improved knowledge and collaboration of soils extension providers between regional body staff and Cotton CRC, CSIRO, NSW DPI and Queensland DPI & F in the Condamine, QMDC, Border Rivers, Gwydir, Namoi, Lachlan and Macquarie catchments

The project has met or exceeded all of its milestones. It succeeded in delivering a consistent message across the entire irrigated cotton and grain growing region of eastern Australia. Feedback from the workshops and regional forums indicate than this extension project was effective in changing practice to improve both profitability and sustainability of irrigated cotton and grains through encouraging best management of healthy soils.

The development of farming machinery and digital technology that is able to generate objective information about the status of the soil, water, crops, pasture and animals is quickly changing the way in which farming businesses can be managed in Australia. The emergence of digital agriculture, and the potential this creates for the application of big data analytics in agriculture, signals the initial stage of a fundamental change away from skill based farm management systems that have prevailed until present times towards a more industrialised model of agriculture where decisions are based to a greater degree on objective data. The introduction of the global Positioning System (GPS) in the 1990's was a notable stage of change. The GPS was then augmented with auto steer technology and grain harvester yield monitors. Subsequent developments include seeder and fertiliser applicators with the capacity to vary application rates within a field. More recently again, software applications and cloud data storage facilities have enabled the resulting data to be captured, stored and manipulated, and then used in decision-support tools to guide farm management decisions. Digital agriculture applications have also emerged in the livestock and horticulture sectors and further with telemetric irrigation and water management systems, remote sensing technologies, and instruments for the automated collection of weather and climatic conditions.

Generally speaking, digital information generated by machinery and technology used on farms is owned by the "farmer", although the 'Conditions of Use' agreements that routinely signed by computer software users when they first register, use a particular application typically curtail the users data ownership rights and create exceptions which enable the software provider to use the data in different ways, and often to make that data available to third parties.

concerns about the misuse of digital agriculture data by service providers has led to the development of a "Code of Practise" in the US and New Zealand. There is a range of initiatives that can be adopted by the Australian agricultural sector, to facilitate the more rapid development of digital agriculture systems. The following nine recommendations outline these:

1. Establish an Australian Digital Agricultural Forum

2. Adopt a key principle that farmers own their data

3. Make agricultural data open access

4. Appoint a Farm Data Ombudsman

5. Publicly fund soil and climate data

6. Publicly fund rural mobile and data networks

7. Publish publicly funded agricultural data open access

8. Publicly fund knowledge and not commercial platforms

9. Digital extension pathways are the future

The three cornerstones of CRDC are investment, innovation and impact. Our role is to invest in targeted and strategic research that delivers real benefits to Australian cotton growers and the wider industry, and that underpins a strong, profitable, sustainable and competitive future for cotton.

That is why, in 2015-16, CRDC invested $21 million into 290 RD&E projects in collaboration with 92 research partners and growers who conducted on-farm trials, across five key program areas: farmers, industry, customers, people and performance.

In this, the CRDC Annual Report for 2015-16, we outline the investment we have made in these projects on behalf of growers and the government, along with the resulting innovations and impacts.

Take these, for example: the world's first facility into cotton climate change research, which will help cotton growers prepare for future climate variability; the industry's first resilience assessment, which will help the industry adapt to change; and the industry's first workforce development strategy, which will help growers attract, retain and develop their staff—but three of CRDC's investments in 2015-16.