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,

and a range of other crops. Dr John Adamczyk, who is based at this institute, visited Narrabri

in 2007 to review research on IPM and develop collaborations (costs were largely covered by

USDA). Dr Adamczyk has extensive experience, especially with the implementation of Bt cottons

and evaluation of factors affecting their field performance and efficacy. He also has

considerable experience with management and research on other cotton pests. This visit was

valuable, especially in planning some of our own research to understand the interaction

between mirid control and mite outbreaks. The discussions also significantly benefitted

Cotton CRC PhD student Baoqain Lu in planning his research to understand how susceptible

Helicoverpa larvae survive in cotton and the economic significance of the damage they

cause.

Dr Adamczyk invited me to visit in June to review cotton research they are doing with the

natural enemy complex in the cotton/soybean system. However, I spent most of my time on

other issues including reviewing progress with Bao’s thesis, mostly directly related to cotton

production, but some related to management of other pests in different systems – which I

thought may be a source of ideas that could be relevant to cotton. I was asked to present a

seminar on cotton research in Australia, especially in relation to management of mirids in

Bollgard II cotton systems.