The 2019 Australian Cotton Production Manual is a critical reference tool for cotton growers: a one-stop-shop of on-farm cotton production information.

Western Flower Thrips (WFT - Frankliniella occidentalis) was first recorded in Australia in the mid 1990’s. In the late 2001 they were found in cotton crops in the St George region (also on grapes), and in early 2002, also in the Namoi, Darling Downs (Dr Melina Miles) and in Emerald (Dave Kelly). WFT are found in cotton in the USA. In California, they are a pest but rarely cause concern and so are regarded more as a beneficial as they eat mite eggs. In the southeastern USA where the cotton season is shorter, they are regarded primarily as a pest. Across the USA WFT in cotton is generally quite susceptible to insecticides. The populations found in Australian cotton, however, have come from horticultural crops where there has been intense insecticide selection and hence they are highly resistant to many insecticides. Dr Grant Herron has a major project to evaluate the insecticide resistance of this pest in horticultural crops and glasshouses. Ironically, WFT is also a predator of mite eggs, as are the local thrips species is important as WFT is visually very similar in appearance to the two other local pest thrips species Thrips tabaci and Frankliniella schultzei, so resistance may also make them a pesticide resistant predator.

Given the potential for WFT to become a pest in cotton we approached CRDC for funding to bring Dr Laurence Mound to Narrabri to provide training on the identification of this species. Identification is important as WFT is visually very similar in appearance to the two other local pest thrips species T. tabaci and F. schultzei as well as a number of other species that sporadically occur in cotton. Dr Mound is internationally recognized for his work with thrips taxonomy, biology and ecology.

A project was funded by the Cotton Research and Development Corporation and conducted by the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture to support the industry in the continuing successful uptake of Centre Pivots and Lateral Moves (CP&LMs) across the Australian cotton industry.

In particular, the cotton industry required assistance in developing their understanding of the way irrigation water from CP&LMs moves through the soil profile in some of Australia's most difficult and challenging soil types. These soils with their naturally low infiltration rates, and in some cases an additional propensity for surface crust and seal development, present sprinkler package designers with particular challenges not encountered elsewhere, especially in terms of uniformity, application efficiency and droplet impact energy levels. The high system capacity, large machine size and extreme weather conditions encountered in combination in the Australian cotton industry exacerbate these issues and require particular design considerations for these sprinkler packages.

To assist the cotton irrigation community understand where CP&LM irrigation water has moved to in the soil profile, over 300 images of soil moisture have been developed from a set of 25 capacitance sensors sited under seven different machines, on different soil types, sprinkler types and growing conditions. A set of video images of the different sprinkler types and their interaction with crop and soil under typical field operating conditions have been produced to assist growers in their understanding of the sprinkler options available.

In addition, a simple software package was developed to assist new CP&LM irrigation managers visualise alternate irrigation strategies, and their influence on the resultant soil moisture levels across the irrigated field.

A series of guidelines have been produced for sprinkler package design and soil moisture probe placement on CP&LMs. The sprinkler guidelines will assist the CP&LM irrigation community to understand the importance of sprinkler design and methods to reduce droplet impact energy levels to below that of natural rainfall to reduce surface crusting and sealing. The probe placement guidelines will aid growers and agronomists to work through the important factors in deciding the type and placement of soil moisture monitoring equipment in CP&LM irrigated fields.

To obtain further information on this work or related matters please contact the Director, National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba on ph 07 46 311 871 or email on schmidte@usq.edu.au .

The Soil-Water Laboratory has been set up with a $45,000 grant from the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) and funding from the University’s own Sesqui major equipment grant program.

Some of the latest instruments for determining the hydraulic properties of soil have been made available in the laboratory to Professor Alex McBratney and his research group in the Faculty of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources.

While the Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources has traditionally focused on production, the new equipment fits hand in glove with the new emphasis on natural resources management, and is expected to yield a host of useful data, applicable to a growing number of collaborative projects.

Bill Gordon Consulting, with assistance from Graham Betts (ASK GB) have collected information on the current level of skill and some details on equipment setups from 110 ground rig operators in cotton from areas Emerald through to Hillston about the current level of skill and knowledge.

The main objectives of the project team included:

To promote greater awareness of the importance of calibration, appropriate equipment setups and spray controller usage for improved application and to minimise the incidence of spray drift (through extension activities, and one-of ‘novel’ events such as the ‘calibration competition’).

To produce, and release through various formats, a series of publications (at least five) identifying key spray activities and issues during the season, working towards the development of a ‘spray planner’ for the cotton season. Outcomes included: SPRAYpak Calculator, articles on Shielded Spraying, Band Application and the‘Shields ain’t Shields” booklet, which were developed for distribution at a number of field and information days.

Additionally, the project team produced & distributed 1000 units of each of two stickers detailing suitable conditions for spraying (a stop-go chart based on SprayPak, and a Delta T chart) for use in spraying rigs.

The project team also produced 1000 units of each of two ‘user friendly tip cards’ The first outlines a pre-spray checklist, the second details tips for improving the use of automatic rate controller and appropriate settings. Further details are incuded in the Final Report.

This report presents the results of a successful collaboration between Rod Mahon and Karen Olsen (CSIRO Entomology) and Dr David Heckel (Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany). For the duration of this project David retained linkages to the University of Melbourne where a significant component of the work was performed.

The project explored resistance to Cry2Ab in the cotton pest Helicoverpa armigera. This species has a remarkable track record of evolving resistance to conventional insecticides and is thus the most likely of the two Helicoverpa species found regularly in cotton (the other is the native H. punctigera) to evolve resistance to the toxins present in transgenic cotton. In other research funded by CRDC, we have found that forms of genes, (alleles) conferring resistance to Cry2Ab toxin in H. armigera are surprisingly common. Because we found the resistance prior to the widespread deployment of transgenic cotton that express this toxin (Bollgard II®), it is clear that the presence of these ‘resistant alleles’ pre-dates man’s activities. Because these alleles are unexpectedly common, (approximately 4 in 100 alleles tested are the ‘resistant’ form) it is important to understand the characteristics of this resistance in order to assess the likelihood that it will become a threat to the long-term efficacy of cotton varieties that express the Cry2Ab toxin as well as a second toxin, Cry1Ac.

We have found that the resistance present in a colony of insects derived from field-collected H. armigera allele is due to a single gene. This fact was established by two quite distinct methods. Firstly, it was found that comparative bioassays of resistant, susceptible, F1 offspring and various backcrosses to the parental (susceptible and resistant) colonies implied that resistance was due to a single autosomal gene. This was confirmed through the study of linkage relationships between genetic variants and resistance. Importantly, the resistance was recessive in the laboratory. If extended to field conditions, this makes this form of resistance less of a threat than would be the case if it was dominant (like most forms of resistance to conventional insecticides).

Of immediate significance to the current varieties of transgenic cotton grown in Australia was the finding that insects seemingly totally resistant to Cry2Ab toxin, are fully susceptible to Cry1Ac, the second toxin in Bollgard II®. Thus it is only during the latter part of the cotton season when Cry 1Ac toxin is diminished in Bollgard II® (similar to the situation in Ingard varieties) that insects resistant to Cry2Ab possess an advantage over susceptible insects. Only under these conditions are the ‘resistant’ alleles likely to increase in frequency. Nevertheless, this window of opportunity is of concern, as if that advantage persists over time, it will lead to a loss of efficacy of this toxin. Clearly careful watch on the frequency of such resistance is important to enable the industry to enjoy the full benefit of any technology that involves Cry2Ab toxin.

CRDC funds an active program to monitor the frequency of resistance to Bt toxins. The most effective means to assess the frequency of resistance is by the use of a simple, but labour intensive genetic system, the F2 screen. Work in this project has identified a likely candidate gene ‘Bre-5’, mutations at which may result in the resistance we have studied. If this information proves to be correct, and can be exploited to develop a DNA means to detect these mutations, this would enable the detection of changes in frequency of the ‘resistant alleles’ earlier, and thus allow more opportunities to respond in a manner that would limit additional changes in frequency before field-resistance became a problem.

This project built on many years of weeds work supported by CRDC and value added to earlier research, while providing strategic information to growers in support of MyBMP, based around updating WEEDpak.

WEEDpak, the guide to integrated weed management in cotton, was a collaborative document written in 2001/2 and released in hard-copy in the spring of 2002. It covered a wide range of weed issues, weed identification material, guidelines for developing an Integrated Weed Management (IWM) approach for cotton, and extensive research findings on the management of specific, hard to control weeds. It was released with 37 weeds and 276 pages of information. WEEDpak has gradually been updated and at the time this project was initiated, included 102 weeds and 612 pages of information, including the Herbicide Damage Identification and Information Guide, a totally new section for WEEDpak. This additional information is only available through the cotton website, where WEEDpak has been the most frequently sought information on the site.

Nevertheless, some strategically important parts of WEEDpak were badly out of date and need updating, such as the IWM Guidelines, Section B2, which were written in the early days of Roundup Ready cotton and primarily covered the conventional cotton production system of the 1990’s. This document needed updating and linking through to the weed components of MyBMP.

The herbicide damage section of WEEDpak is becoming increasingly important, with the spread of cotton into new areas and the growing complexity of the farming system. This guide will need to continue to grow in response to growers seeking information on new herbicides.

The weed threshold work has been a world-class research break-through, but results in research have highlighted limitations to the weed density based approach. Further research will explore the option of going to a weed biomass based threshold to overcome these issues and improve usability.

The Improving energy efficiency on irrigated Australian cotton farms project has developed resources for cotton growers to reduce their energy consumption, updated the cotton industry's myBMP energy module, delivered training, workshops and two energy events, the Big Day Outs. It has also coordinate industry-wide energy use benchmarking and compiled these results and recommendations into a benchmarking report. The Improving energy efficiency on irrigated Australian cotton farms project hhad several objectives and the resulting outcomes have had a significant impact on energy efficiency knowledge, skills, awareness and attitude in the Australian cotton industry. Over 1000 irrigated cotton farms (SMEs) have directly participated in energy efficiency capacity building and awareness raising events held via this project: close to every Australian irrigated cotton SME. This project has developed nearly thirty written information resources and has delivered these directly to 850 irrigated cotton SMEs via thirteen field days, workshops and training sessions, including two large scale events, the Big Day Outs.

This project has captured 213 energy assessments of Australian irrigated cotton businesses and compiled these into an important legacy document: Improving Energy Efficiency in Australian Irrigated Cotton Production Benchmarking Report. This report provides the cotton industry a comprehensive analysis of energy consumption, efficiency and future focus areas to continue to improve energy efficiency on irrigated cotton farms across Australia. This data highlights the significance of diesel as the dominant energy source in the Australian cotton industry - clearly clearly identifying this industry as being significantly different to other broadacre industries in Australia where electricity dominates as the energy supply.

The Level 2 and 3 energy assessments have highlighted irrigation efficiency as an area of particular focus to implement energy efficiency activities on irrigated cotton farms. It is recommended three groups should receive special attention in relation to their energy consumption and pumping costs due to their relatively high consumption of energy – groundwater irrigators; irrigators that use large mixed flow pumps; and irrigators that use heavy tillage. The tractor and heavy tillage trials confirm that up to 20 per cent fuel saving is possible with the correct and appropriate ballasting, tyre pressures, and implement depth control.

The assessments have also highlighted that potential water savings in surface irrigated cotton fields can be 10 to 20 per cent, and 20 to 40 per cent in on-farm storages. As such, every effort should be made to conserve irrigation water at the field level, in distribution systems, and in water storages, as any water lost that has already been pumped is simply lost energy expenditure.

In the most recent Australian Cotton Grower Survey (2014), irrigated SMEs were asked whether they had made any changes to improve the efficiency of water pumping. The three most common actions identified by the respondents were: replacing pumps (56 per cent), replacing pump engines (47 per cent) and increasing attention to maintenance schedules (30 per cent). These activities reflect the emphasis on Level 3 pump efficiency assessments undertaken as part of this project and the relatively high proportion and variation of energy consumption for irrigation.

This report covers the Border Rivers, Moonie and Lower Balonne catchments in the Queensland

Murray Darling Committee, Inc. , (QMDC) management area with the focus of determining priority

groundwater projects. There are three major alluvial groundwater management issues in the QMDC

management area. In the east the Dumaresq River is highly connected to the alluvial aquifers which

are used for groundwater extraction by the irrigation sector. The groundwater model that covers

these alluvial aquifors, and which was used as part of informing the water allocations between NSW

and QLD, needs to be updated. There is new information in the form of longer hydrograph records,

better understanding of river aquifer interactions, longer river flow records and new approaches to

catchment water balance modelling that can all be integrated to give a better catchment water

balance model for input into groundwater management decisions. The main issue for the

cotton/irrigation industry is that over use of goundwater from the Dumaresq River alluvia may

influence river flows, including water released for downstream users.

Given the recent extensive work in the west of the catchment from Goondiwindito Mungindi and the Lower Balonne, it is suggested that the focus should shift to other regions and similar scales of investigation to that done in the Lower Balonne be undertaken in

order to generate similar quality baseline hydrogeological data.

partnering with the Primary Industry Centre for Science Education (PICSE) has been a key strategy for the cotton industry to ensure it has access to, and availability of skilled professionals into the future. PISCE is an industry/university/school partnership designed to stimulate student interest in studying science at university and creating a pathway into real primary industries careers. PISCE brings together Government, RDC's, CRC's and industry investors, and has a national co-ordination centre hosted by the University of Tasmania. Regional Activity Centres (AC's) hosted by universities and industries nationwide implement the PICSE program. The project supports direct engagement with employers so they can experience real professional cotton industry careers in action, and thus supports a stronger employee supply chain.

The PICSE investment has strongly supported workforce development in cotton and has been successful in being able to incorporate aspects of cotton production in able to reach a number of schools (17 in 2014) resulting in 739 student hearing the PICSE/Cotton story. Further the PICSE program has been a strong supporter of the Science and Engineering Investigation Awards and also the annual cotton camp through which 20+ students annually receive much greater immersion into the cotton industry. Many of these students are then linked through to Horizon scholarships which provide further benefit to the industry.