The cotton sector has prioritised workforce development for strategic investment by setting human capacity building as a goal and defining a strategy to plan for future industry capacity needs.

The Cotton Field Awareness map is an industry initiative which has been designed to highlight the location of cotton fields, was first intitiated by the sponsors in 2012/13.

Black root rot, caused by the pathogen Theilaviopsis basicola is an important disease in Australian cotton.

CRDC 2015/16 Summer Scholarships (S/S ) Purpose- Strategic Plan Targets 1.Farmers 2. Industry 3.Customers 4. People 5.Performance Summer Scholarship Programme - 8 weeks

Current nutrient management strategies are based primarily on the concept of cost effective nutrient management (i.e.

Plant Health Australia (PHA) has reviewed and updated the Biosecurity Plan for the Cotton Industry.The cotton industry remains under constant threat from exotic and endemic pests, diseases and weeds.

Climatic variability, typified by erratic heavy-rainfall events can cause soil waterlogging and yield losses in irrigated cotton.

The reason for travel is to attend the 2014 Beltwide Cotton Conference to be held from the 6 – 8 January at the Marriott Hotel in New Orleans, LA, USA.

Viral diseases of cotton are of economic significance in many parts of the world. Only two virus diseases have been reported from Australian cotton crops, Cotton bunchy top (CBT) and Tobacco streak virus (TSV).

Australia contributes approximately 12% of the world’s total cotton production, and is the third largest exporter of cotton fibre.

The cotton industry relies on GM cotton expressing insecticidal toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). This provides resistance to key pests of cotton, the bollworm Helicoverpa armigera and the native budworm H.

FUSCOM has always been an excellent means to encourage collaboration between research groups within Australia and communicate research activities to various groups.

Bee hives are sometimes placed near cotton fields where there is a risk that they will be exposed to pesticides such as fipronil.

Transgenic cotton was introduced to Australia in 1996 with Ingard® which was replaced by Bollgard II® in 2004/05.

The Menindee and Lower Darling Cotton Growing Association (MLD CGA) is one of a number of CGA organisation's formed throughout cotton growing areas in Australia by local growers and sponsored by Cotton Australia

Financial performance benchmarking studies have identified increasing fertiliser input costs in the cotton industry.

CRDC’s Grassroots Grants program encourages Cotton Grower Associations to apply for funding to support capacity building projects in their region.

This proposal builds on many years of weeds work supported by CRDC and aims to value add to the earlier work, while providing strategic information to cotton growers in support of MyBMP, based around updating WEEDpak,

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.

The 40 year anniversary of the construction of the Fairbairn Dam and Emerald Irrigation Scheme prompted the