Online content is now a major resource for many in the agricultural community, with downloadable publications, interactive apps, and multimedia platform providers such as YouTube increasingly being utilised by government and businesses to extend detailed messages to clients.The primary objective of the project was to build on the repository of easily accessible short multimedia (video) files created in DAQ1302 that communicate scientifically-based crop production, crop protection and best practice principles to a diverse audience. Over the past decade, information extension has moved from being predominantly hard copy publications and face-to-face presentations to an eclectic mix of material, both print and multimedia.

Industry support for both video projects has been excellent, with 70 individuals from 25 different organisations, as well as growers participating as presenters or content contributors. There have also been many conference delegates or field day attendees who have provided short comments that were utilised in some of the videos.

Between July 2016 and June 2018, this project had produced 43 videos for public viewing on the YouTube Channel, plus several more for promotional purposes relating to cotton conferences.

The project’s focus is to expand the searchable archive of production and industry-related topics currently available on the CottonInfo YouTube channel (youtube.com/cottoninfoaust). As at 30 June 2018, the channel had received a total of 760,623 views, with a total estimated watch time of 769,647 minutes (equivalent to 76.35 weeks).

The project team had also assisted with videos for other groups or individuals, with services from editing and production, to branding and closed captions. he cotton industry already has a considerable investment in many information products such as the cotton production guidelines and infoPAKS, and videos add value to this repository by utilising vision and audio to communicate and extend ideas and concepts in an informative and entertaining way.

The cotton industry’s joint extension program, CottonInfo, is designed to service the commercially unmet cotton research and development information needs of growers and to support industry efforts to improve practices, productivity, competitiveness and environmental performance. The videos produced in this project are CottonInfo-branded, supporting the CottonInfo strategic goal of making R&D information, trusted advice and specialist technical R&D knowledge readily available through a variety of different communication channels.

The silverleaf whitefly (SLW) was first discovered in Australia in 1994. At the

commencement of the project(July 1998)it occurred in all cotton areas, where it was readily found on a range of ornamental plants in nurseries. In the field in Queensland during 1996/97 - 1997/98 it was found sporadically in very low numbers in towns in cotton areas, but not in cotton fields. It is a significant pest of cotton in other countries including the USA where production losses in some areas have averaged about 20%. A computer model(Climex) analysis of its potential geographic distribution in Australia indicated that the cotton areas of Queensland should be highly suitable environments for this pest.

The SLW is characterised by an exceptionally wide host range, a high rate of reproduction and a capacity to detoxify both natural and synthetic xenobiotics, making it resistant to many insecticides.

Apart from the issues surrounding insecticidal control and insecticide resistance management, the other major considerations in silverleaf whitefly management and development of ERM strategies are cultural control, the use of natural enemies and host-plant resistance. an important issue in cultural control is the influence of alternative crops and weed hosts (particularly overwintering hosts) on whitefly population development.

The tritrophic interactions of whiteflies, host plant and beneficials have to be considered in assessing the role of the two other relatively innocuous whiteflies in the cotton system, the greenhouse whitefly and the indigenous B. tabci.

The objectives of this project were: 1. To identify candidate pathogens for the biocontrol of purple nutsedge ( Cyperus rotundus). 2. To determine the potential of candidate pathogens as augmentive and inundative biocontrol agents of purple nutsedge in cotton. 3. To determine the feasibility of using combinations of pathogens either as a "cocktail mixture" (to broaden the spectrum of weeds affected) or applied at different times (to determine possible synergistic interactions in terms of weed control). 0 2 4. To define the conditions under which potential biocontrol pathogens are most likely to succeed and not succeed. 5. To work with weed scientists to determine how biocontrol might best be integrated into weed management systems.,

Seasonal forecasting webinar 2014-15 description and registration

Satellites, airborne imaging systems and hand held instruments are frequently proposed as indicators of crop stress caused by water, soil compaction, lack of nutrients, diseases and mites. Laboratory experiments have shown this is possible, but many of these studies focus on stresses far greater than any good farmer would allow their crop to endure. In the absence of any field studies reporting cotton canopy reflectance in Australia, a study was conducted to investigate how crop reflectance and temperature changes with the onset of water stress in the green, red, near infrared and thermal infrared wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. These wavelengths are the most commonly used by remote sensing tools. The objective of this experiment was to determine if crop reflectance measurements could detect water stress before it was visible to the human eye. The emphasis of this project was not on the effects of prolonged water stress that are clearly visible to the eye, but rather subtle changes in the crop water status that farmers contend with as a crop irrigation approaches. Pre-visual detection of water stress using handheld radiometers, airborne or satellite imagery would permit more accurate tinting of irrigations before crop yield is adversely affected.

Neps are clusters of fibres or entanglements of fibres. They are classified as biological neps, mechanical neps and white specks. Biological neps are those that contain foreign material; mechanical neps contain only fibres and are the result of mechanical manipulation during processing; and white specks are neps that are found as light or white spots on fabric due to their resistance to dyeing. Upwards of 90 % of visible neps in the dyed fabric contain immature fibre and appear as white specks. It had been estimated that the United States alone has lost as much as two hundred million dollars annually due to these dye defects. To develop predictions of white specks, large field-to-fabric studies have been undertaken jointly by the U. S. and Australia. A new image analysis system has been developed and provides quick and accurate measurements of the problem. Now, high-speed fibre measurements can be related to the fabric white speck level. Micronaire, detects extreme cases of white specks, but is more useful when the mature level of micronaire is known for an individual variety. AFIS also shows promise in detecting white speck potential Equations using micronaire and AFIS data are being developed to predict white speck. Meanwhile, variety, micronaire and level of cleaning should be tracked for all ginned cottons along with quality data from the end buyer or at least records of bales which industry has questioned as problematic for neps. This historical data will yield databases which will let the producer/ginner know what micronaire ranges are acceptable for their varieties. The information can be then be used to estimate whether or not a particular cotton is more prone to neps.

The Cotton Pest Management Guide 2013-14 is the industry’s premium resource for insect, mite and weed control, disease prevention, biosecurity and spray application information. The Guide builds on the wealth of knowledge from research the cotton industry has undertaken since the publication first began in the 1980s and is an important tool for growers, agronomists and consultants alike. Importantly, when it comes to protecting the crop, growers are not alone - insects, weeds and diseases do not respect farm boundaries, so it’s important that the industry works together to manage pests.

The Cotton Pest Management Guide is published by the industry’s joint CottonInfo team and is updated each year to incorporate consistent improvements in industry best practice.

Cotton growers generally recognise crop performance or yield as the best indicator of soil biology. The record yields of recent seasons indicate that farmers are generally looking after their soils well from the perspective of plant nutition and control of soil bourne diseases. However, there are a number of concerns which may impinge on the continued success of cotton crop performance. These include questions such as:

1)Are current cotton growing practises sustainable in the long term?

2)Will declining soil carbon levels present problems in the future?

3)Is the quality/biology of cotton soils under threat?

4)Are there better ways of looking after our soils?

Crop yield can be primarily driven by a combination of factors associated with soil chemical and physical fertility and best practises in crop selection and management. However, for a more complete integration of all components of soil biology into decision-making tools used by farmers, there is increasing recognition of the contribution of soil biological processes to 'healthy' soil.

Weeds are a significant threat to all farming systems in NSW. Glyphosate tolerant cotton has been rapidly adopted by the Australian cotton industry since its introduction 18 years ago and currently accounts for about 99% of all cotton crops sown. This has led to a change in weed management practices with growers moving away from applying residual herbicides in anticipation of a weed problem, to dealing with known weed issues in fields using predominantly glyphosate to control surviving weeds.

These changes have resulted in a shift in the weed species found across cotton growing regions. Increasingly the broadleaf weeds: flax-leaf fleabane and sow thistle, dominate weed spectrums in cotton crops, and with increasing weed burdens in the non-cotton component of the rotation. Other important weeds include: the emerging threat of awnless barnyard grass and increasing problems with feathertop Rhodes grass and windmill grass. This project undertook a number of weed surveys to get a baseline measure of the level of glyphosate resistance in hard to control weeds of cotton farming systems.

This project aimed to develop increased weeds research capacity within the cotton industry and improve the knowledge and understanding of critical areas including:

• The current herbicide resistance status of weeds in the cotton system including awnless barnyard grass, feathertop Rhodes grass, windmill grass, fleabane and sowthistle.

• The impact of tillage operations for pupae busting on weed control in cotton systems

• Controlled environment studies to better understand the role of temperature, rainfall, growth stage and different populations on the survival of important weeds, especially awnless barnyard grass.

The project also incorporated the role of Technical Lead for Weed management within the CottonInfo team, as lead researcher. The project has worked closely with CottonInfo Regional Extension Officers (REO’s) to deliver extension messages and communicate results from herbicide resistance testing.

CSE1304 set out to test assumptions for refuges; tested if tolerance in addition to resistance could be a potential threat to Bt cotton efficacy and looked at ways to improve refuge governance. This project has identified some issues with refuge assumptions, and increased understanding of tolerance that will be presented to the TIMS technical panel for discussion.

While some assumptions for refuges such as moths from Bt and non-Bt refuges readily mate, and the population is not segregated were found to hold, others did not. It was found that much higher numbers of both Helicoverpa species are emerging from Bt cotton than expected. This suggests that 50% of all moths in Bt/refuge complex (ie excluding unstructured refuges) are originating from Bt cotton. This highlights the importance of both a healthy and attractive refuge, but also growing a healthy Bt cotton crop.

Susceptible Helicoverpa, especially in latter instars, could survive in Bt cotton by feeding on plant structures with low levels of toxin. While H.armigera may be more likely to develop resistance to Cry2Ab, H.punctigera may be more likely to develop tolerance to Cry1Ac. H.punctigera exposed to low levels of Cry1Ac toxins in later instars produced offspring with higher tolerance to Cry1Ac toxin; and those emerging from Bt cotton had higher tolerance to Cry1Ac. Exposure to both Cry1Ac and Cry2Ab concurrently lead to an increase in tolerance levels.

Some planned genetic studies of tolerant colonies were not able to proceed because it was identified that Cry2Ab colony had the HaR01 Cry2Ab resistance gene. It is likely the original 2011 susceptible colony had an undetectable level of the gene that increased in concentration with exposure to low level toxins. Tolerance may assist the survival of RS individuals, thereby assisting the spread of resistance, but this needs more investigation. Tolerance was found to decrease over generations when larvae are no longer exposed to toxins, so refuges may help to reduce the impact of both tolerance and resistance.

Narrow refuges did not detract from the attractiveness of pigeon pea, and attractive pigeon pea did not increase egg lays in neighbouring Bt cotton. Given the mobility of, and the ability of late instar pupae to survive and build tolerance (particularly H.punctigera tolerance to low levels of Cry1Ac toxin) , it was identified that larvae moving from non-Bt plants to Bt (eg deteriorating refuges to Bt cotton) was a threat. Recommendation to have Bt cotton and refuges separated will be raised with the Bt tech panel.

Pigeon pea attractiveness was found to be higher at the end of the season, meaning these refuges may act more like trap crops. The case for destruction of pigeon pea crops at the end of the season will be raised with Bt tech panel.

While satellite imagery is not useful in identifying field attractiveness at a particular point in time, it does indicate season-long vitality and shows potential to check for problematic refuges remotely, although more work would be needed to fully develop techniques.

Moths of the genus Helicoverpa are the most destructive pests in Australian cotton. They have been also some of the most difficult to manage because H. armigera (in particular) has quickly developed resistance (within 5-8 years) to nearly every insecticide used in its control (Whitehouse et al. 2007). To hinder H.armigera developing resistance to Bt cotton, a Resistance Management Plan (RMP) was put in place when Bt cotton was first used commercially in Australia in 1996. As this was over 15 years ago, the RMP has been successful. Nevertheless, in light of the development of resistance to Bt cotton by H. armigera in other parts of the world (Tay et al. 2013) it is important to remain vigilant and keep testing the tools used in the RMP.

A key tool of the RMP is the use of refuges. Refuges help maintain the potency of Bt cotton by producing unselected Helicoverpa moths that mate with any resistant moths emerging from the Bt crop, thereby diluting their genetic contribution to the next generation and slowing the development of resistance.

Refuge governance is based on models with assumptions that are difficult to test on farms. The Helicoverpa Genome Project has mapped all of Helicoverpa’s genes, making it easier to test two assumptions on the frequency of resistant (R) and susceptible (S) genes, and on the degree to which moths mix both within valleys and between Bt cotton and its refuges. If these assumptions are incorrect, then refuges may be underperforming.

Although refuges are designed to counter Bt resistance developing from genetic mutations, a recent CRDC project (03UA002) showed that under laboratory conditions, the exposure of Helicoverpa to low, non-lethal doses of Bt toxins over 12 generations can cause H.armigera to develop inducible tolerance to Bt toxins, to the extent that they are not killed by levels of Bt toxin fatal to susceptible H.armigera. As stressed Bt cotton plants may produce less toxin, and some parts of the plant produce low levels of toxin, inducible tolerance could be another pathway by which Helicoverpa could survive on Bt cotton. An aim of this project is to test the likelihood that inducible tolerance could occur in field crops of Bt cotton, and if so, if refuges could reduce that risk.

For refuges to counter genetic resistance and inducible tolerance to Bt toxins, they must be working optimally on farms and produce as many moths as possible. To do so refuges need to attract sufficient egglays, and then support as many of the resulting Helicoverpa larvae as possible until maturity. For many growers it isn’t clear if their refuges are countering the development of resistance; how to improve the productivity of their refuges; or how to measure the effectiveness of their refuges in order to improve efficacy. Monitoring refuge productivity is a challenge, with current reporting often at odds with on farm realities. A remote method of checking refuges could be used to identify refuges facing difficulties, which could be then ground-truthed. The ultimate aim of this work is to incorporate best management practises into myBMP to improve refuge governance and also to develop better monitoring techniques to identify under-performing refuges which may need more assistance.

The overall aim of this project is to improve the ability of refuges to counter both the threat of resistance developing via genetic mutation, and the potential threat of crop failure via inducible tolerance. By accessing and countering these threats while concurrently developing better refuge management and benchmarking techniques to improve refuge governance, the ultimate aim is to avoid the cost of losing Bt cotton efficacy.