Installation of a Halon gas fire suppression facility has been completed at a total cost of $12,970* including the linking of the warning system to the building's fire warning system. The fire suppression facility will eliminate risk of fire started within the computer room by the automatic release of Halon gas; the gas is inert and does not damage electronic equipment.

Travel Ent society conference

Travel Daly Narrabri research conference

The objective of this project was to modify the weather station at our Breeza Australian Cotton Cultivar site to enable the use of the telephone system and the SIRATAC computer to collect the data.

The objective of this project was to train Mr Brook in the correct use of new software tools at DEC's software education centre in Sydney.

The objective for this project was to erect and operate a fibreglass greenhouse at Narrabri.

Three methods of determining levels of resistance in H.armigera were evaluated. These included: (i) a standard glass vial test (ii) a tropical application (iii) a leaf disc test

Large scale trials of SIRA TAC comparing standard and dynamic thresholds were done for three years on commercial farms along the length of the Namoi valley. The results of these trials were integrated with data from CS16L and CS30L (The response of cotton crops to damage) and made available to the industry at the Australian Cotton Conference (Brook et 1986, Kelly et al 1988). Further analysis of these results shown that the capacity of the cotton crop to compensate for early season damage depends on the yield level. At yield levels common a decade or more ago (5 to 6 bales per ha) the crop could compensate but at current yield levels (7+ bales per ha) it is unable to do so. Furthermore Siokra is more tolerant to damage than DP90. These findings have been published in a series of three papers in the Journal of Economic Entomology (Brook et al 1992, in press) and received rave reviews from the cotton entomology community as one of the most thoroughly tested cotton pest management systems. The abstracts of these papers are attached.

In recent years the use of agrochemicals, often referred to as pesticides, has become an increasingly controversial topic. The purpose of this paper is to address key issues of interest to all groups with a bona fide stake in production of food, fibre and other commodities, and to emphasize the need to safeguard health and the environment as a whole. Although the conference subject is cotton production, there is a need to consider chemicals in a wider international context.