Even though the cotton industry is relatively successful, it continually faces a range of critical issues from drought and water supply; yield and profitability; fibre quality and export price; nutrition; sustainabili

7. Provide an assessment of the likely impact of the results and conclusions of the research

project for the cotton industry. What are the take home messages?

Water consumption in the irrigation sector has a perception of being a high water consumer, these perceptions are not wrong. Currently it represents 53% of total water consumption in Victoria (ABS, 2010).

The CQ Cotton Regional Extension project has been a key to the delivery of emerging, cutting edge research information and knowledge to the Central Queensland cotton industry.

The Australian Future Cotton Leaders program was conducted between June 2009 and September 2010. The project framework was managed by Cotton Australia. The program involved three key stages over 14 months:

This report builds on the first four stages of the study, Exploring the Relationship Between Community Resilience & Irrigated Agriculture in the MDB,1 to address the following research questions:

The Cottonscope technology has been successfully transferred to BSC Electronics and into

their company Cottonscope P/L. Comparison of Cottonscope test results with reference

A knowledge system model to improve the effectiveness of the transfer of(irrigation) information to growers was developed and tested.

Worldwide, virus diseases, especially Cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) cause serious economic losses to cotton production.

Travel to the USDA Kika De La Garcia Agricultural Research Centre at Weslaco in South

West Texas. This is an area of mixed cropping that includes cotton, sugarcane, soybean, corn,

Resistance to poses a threat to the continued sustainable production of cotton that transgenic agriculture has enabled.

Conyza bonariensis (L.) Cronquist, flaxleaf fleabane, originating from South America, is a

major emerging weed threat for dry-land cropping systems in Australia. Conyza bonariensis

The Australian cotton industry is a regional based market focused industry generating in excess of $1 billion of export revenue.

This research has shown that community beliefs about the future role of cotton in traditional 'cotton communities varies considerably.

An open hydroponics system aims to increase productivity by high frequency application of irrigation water and nutrients to the soil. Such a system is sometimes also called advanced fertigation.

Water management in the cotton industry has continued to be of fundamental importance to sustainability and production.

Insects can respond to selection pressure by mobilising new defence mechanisms.

The aims of the project were to determine the effect of selected management practices on

carbon sequestration, soil quality and hydrology, crop agronomy and profitability in irrigated

Deep drainage below the root zone is still the least understood component of the water balance, especially in cracking clay soils.

myBMP Overview: website operational 2010. A power point presentation on myBMP tools, website and resources with technical assistance contacts.