From a humanised viewpoint cotton may be thought of as a lazy plant. It "employs" microscopic fungi to do some of the hard work of collecting nutrients from the soil.

Insecticide resistance continues to be a major problem for the cotton grower. It also is the focus of much of the research into the use and management of transgenic plants.

Various parasitoids of heliothis have been considered in integrated pest management programs throughout the world.

In common with about 80% of all plants, cotton forms VAM (vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizas). VAM are associations of soil-borne fungi with the roots of plants.

The value of lucerne as a trap crop for cotton pests has been recognised in America for some time (Deloach and Peters 1972, Robinson et al. 1972, Sevacherian and Stern 1974).

Resistance to some carbamate insecticides ( methomyl and carbaryl) in H. armigera is has been known since 1983. But at that time no resistance to thiodicarb (also a carbamate) was identified.

Having previously identified poor N recovery as largely a denitrification problem, research began to investigate means of reducing N loss.

The conference was held on the 23 - 27th of August, 1994 in Silsoe, UK.

Project Objectives: Part A: (i) To study the effect of wet/dry cycles with drying by evaporation alone in ameliorating degraded furrows in retained hill cotton (at the Fressor site).

A growth disorder of cotton ( Gossypium hirsutum) occurs in irrigated cracking clay soils in cotton growing regions of northern New South Wales.

Vertosols are the main soil type on which cotton is grown in Australia. Eighty percent of irrigated cotton is grown in retained hill.

OBJECTIVES: 1. To study sampling and control practices for mirlds in irrigated and dryland cotton.

This report summarises the findings from the CRDC funded project "Managing soils to avoid compaction problems in cotton growing". The project ran from 1989/90 to 1991192.

Annual Report 1994-1995

The cotton plant has two main sets of traits that contribute to its resistance to pests: (1) chemical (e.g. gossypol) and morphological defences (e.g. okra-leaf) and (2) compensatory mechanisms for regrowth (e.g.

Cotton fibres are differentiated from single ovule epidermal cells and grow synchronously, initiating at about the time of anthesis.

In March 1995 I attended two Keystone Symposia, "Frontiers of Plant Morphogenesis" and "Signal Transduction in Plants", held concurrently at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, U.S.A.

Frontiers of Population Ecology Meeting program and abstracts

This report arises from a scoping brief presented to the author on 19th May 1995.

The aim of this book is to help cotton growers, field consultants and agronomists correctly identify the wide range of pests and beneficials that can be found in the crops they manage.