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

The Macquarie valley is closely monitoring the smart farm and ‘automation” space, there are currently two providers in the valley who are offering new technology that the Macquaire Cotton Grower Association (MCGA) would like to trial in an “on farm evaluation”. The MCGA have been using and evaluating the Canopy Temperature Sensor (CTS) technology and would now like to trial the “LoRaWan” gateway to access the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. There are potential significant gains to be made that could lead to our overall objective of improving efficiency of our most limiting commodity - water.

The project will have a three-year life span. The sensors will be purchased outright by the

MCGA and the cost includes access to the software for a three-year period. Past trial work has outlined the need to evaluate over more than one season. The sensors easily moved, and “Gateway” access exists across the valley, farm locations can changed after the first season

to explore other irrigation systems such as drip or overhead in the subsequent seasons.

2 of 10 This project has massive scope and potential to be built upon, there is flexibility to be able to repeat it next season with very little capital inputs. It can be adaptive and will try to explore how the IoT can help all farmers to improve

Picking contractors are most concerned about the financial viability and security of their business and the aging status and declining value of their machinery Movement of machinery is a major concern for picking contractors. Standardised and simplified Road Transport requirements need to be prepared and available for contractors.

These is little focus on the impact of fibre quality during picking as both growers

and contractors assumed the impact is minimal and/or they are doing their best to

minimise degradation. All overview of fibre quality needs to be given at an ACPA

meeting and fibre quality guidelines needs to be disseminated.

Introduction The business of cotton picking is an intensive and arguably a high-risk/low profitability exercise. his an industry where over half of the stakeholders have been in the business for over 15 years and as a result run very efficient and finely-tuned operations. Of these businesses, the majority entered the industry as they saw picking cotton as a profitable venture and in some cases, an opportunity for self-employment or a supplementary income that complemented other business interests. Despite the length of time in the industry, majority of operators are only continuing as their machinery has no trade in or sale value and their long term future in the industry is non-existent.

There is frustration in the industry due to the lack of profitability and security and the

decreasing value of machinery. Furthermore, staff, occupational health and safety (OH&S) and moving machinery between jobs provides added stress and complications. Added to this is the reduced picking window due to agronomic advancements and the lack of physical time to make money.

This report outlines the current status of the industry with reference to the operation in general, staff and OH&S, machinery maintenance and transport, and fibre quality.

A growth disorder of cotton has been observed in irrigated cracking clay soils in fields at Galathera Creek, north of the Australian Cotton Research Institute (ACRI) for several years. The condition has since been found at other sites. Affected plants were stunted and grew slowly during the first half of the season and yielded poorly. Growth of stunted plants improved in mid-season but too late for substantial recovery of yield. Yield showed little or no improvement when P and Zn fertilisers were applied. Preliminary observations suggested that a lack of vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizal (V AM) development may have been adversely affecting cotton nutrition The aim of projects UNE7C and UNEl 7C was to determine the cause of the early season growth disorder (Galathera syndrome) and the role of VAM with regard to growth, development and yield of cotton

The 2021-22 CRDC Researchers' Handbook is a key resource for all researchers working with, or interested in applying for funding from, the CRDC. Updated annually, the Handbook outlines the key information researchers need to know, including key dates, the application process, funding and stipends available, the payment, evaluation and reporting processes and the CRDC’s intellectual property policy. These, and other critical details needed by researchers are provided in the Handbook.

In Australia, management of cotton pests is insecticide based. Beneficial insects are neglected due to the disruptive impact of the insecticides, lack of techniques to maximise their abundance and effectiveness and also lack of ecological diversity in Australian cotton systems which are monoculture and militate against beneficial arthropods. Studies to develop a control strategy for early season pests on cotton which has minimal effect on natural enemies commenced in July 1992 until June 1995. These studies showed that provision of supplementary food through Envirofeast spray can attract, conserve and augment naturally-ocurring predatory insects, including transverse, three-banded, twospotted ladybird beetles, red and blue beetle, big-eyed bug, damsel bug and green lacewings. These insects are natural enemies of cotton pests especially Helicoverpa spp. However, thiodicarb and endosulfan which were previously known to the industry to be "soft" on beneficial insects were shown in this study to significantly reduce predatory insect numbers. Interplanting of luceme, as strips within cotton farms, served as a trap crop or sink for early season cotton pests such as green mirids and as refugia for predatory insects. Green mirids and predatory insects on cotton can be effectively sampled using Dvac. The integration of Envirofeast and the lucerne/cotton interplant (i.e. refugia technology) into a pest management system eliminated the need for early season synthetic insecticide sprays and reduced total synthetic insecticide sprays per season by 60 per cent. Envirofeast product unfortunately is not rainfast and production technology needs to be developed to produce the product in large quantities for commercial use. With resistance of Helicoverpa spp. to insecticides increasing, and the possibility that insect resistance will be a major problem even with transgenic cotton, the control strategy developed in this study should be integrated with transgenic cotton to sustain future cotton production.

Project Objective: To provide the basis for improved crop and soil management in dryland cotton production systems by: 1. monitoring on-farm performance of cotton-based dryland cropping systems; 2. using on-farm data to prove the creditability of our simulation models; 3. with growers and consultants, using the models to determine production strategies for cropping systems that include cotton that are both profitable and sustainable.

The Autumn 2023 edition of Spotlight looks at the rollout of the WAND spray hazard warning system, plus new research into helping prevent human rights abuses in our supply chain, and the development of CRDC's new Strategic RD&E Plan.

The roll out of WAND represents CRDC's commitment to invest in technology to give crop managers in cotton and grains another powerful tool in the arsenal of best practice. WAND gives users another level of due diligence and a commitment to best practice spray application.

Due diligence doesn’t just apply to spray drift, nor is it just confined to on farm – it’s something the cotton industry needs to consider throughout the entire supply chain, and across issues like human rights abuses. CRDC’s taken a lead role through research to explore how Australian growers can help curb human rights abuses in value chains that handle their fibre. It’s a new way of thinking about where the Australian cotton industry’s responsibilities start and end, by looking downstream all the way from farms to the consumer.

On the home front, consultation is about to start with growers around a model for native vegetation management. It is part of the process to create targets for the Australian cotton industry’s Sustainability Framework PLANET. PEOPLE. PADDOCK.

PLANET. PEOPLE. PADDOCK also helps underpin the new CRDC Strategic RD&E Plan for 2023-28, which is currently being developed. It’s an exciting time for CRDC and cotton research, with a bold, ambitious new plan being built around the theme of ‘clever cotton’. A snapshot of the proposed plan is included in this edition.