CRDC recognises that people are the cotton industry’s greatest resource. We continue to invest

in the capacity and capability of people through many programs, designed to build a skilled,

educated and progressive industry workforce and an industry connected by dynamic networks.

We also invest in a range of people programs to build our leadership capacity.

Three of the current key focuses include CottonInfo, the industry’s unique joint venture

in extension, which is extending key research outcomes to growers; the collaborative

implementation of the industry workforce development strategy, which will underpin future

workforce programs; and communications, to ensure our stakeholder needs are met.

Overall, the goal is to improve the capacity of our growers and the wider industry to attract,

retain and develop their people, and to support strong relationships and engagement in

research through an interconnected network.

Attendance and presentation at the Cotton Industry Workforce Development Strategy and Research Forum enabled the opportunity to workshop with a group of selected, interested people on the final draft of the future Workforce development strategy and future outcomes for cotton education.

Additionally, networking with people with invested educational interests from other states and presenting with Mr Gordon Stone on the cotton industry’s education activities and the young cotton professional program.

CottonInfo’s cotton nutrition

tour hit the road in February 2016, bringing 10 leading cotton nutrition researchers onto farms

across five cotton growing valleys.

Growers were invited to field days at Gunnedah, Warren, Griffith, Emerald and Moree to meet with

these researchers and to learn about the latest developments in nutrition research. Kicking off with the Gunnedah

field day on February 8, on to Warren, Griffith, Emerald and Moree.

A Research overview was the Agenda led by Allan

Williams and Jane Trindall, CRDC. other specialised presenters included:

Sustainable cotton production: higher yields, more often - Dr Oliver Knox, UNE

Nutrient budgeting - Dr Chris Dowling, Back Paddock

Improving nitrogen use efficiency- Dr Dio Antille, USQ

Mineralised nitrogen in crop - Dr Francois Visser, UQ

Nitrogen losses from irrigated cotton - Dr Ben Macdonald, CSIRO Phosphorus considerations: irrigated and raingrown cotton - Dr

Brendan Griffiths, UNE

Optimising nitrogen and irrigation application and nitrous oxide emissions - Jon Baird, NSW DPI

Soil health and crop rotations - Dr Vadakutta Gupta, CSIRO

Nitrous oxide losses from irri- gated cotton - Dr Graeme Schwenke, NSW DPI

Research in practice - Nigel Corish, cotton grower and Nuffield Scholar

Research, trials and local issues

- Local CottonInfo regional development officers,

PLUS, hear from the growers hosting each of the field days about their on-farm crop nutrition.

All topics were covered at Gunnedah, Warren, Griffith and Emerald. A modified

agenda for Moree, as was nutrition is part of the agenda at the Gwydir Valley Irrigators Association

grower-led irrigation systems research field day.

Automating surface irrigation systems can deliver both improved efficiencies in labor and water use. The precise control of flows and water levels throughout a farm can also result in improved production and reduced costs of production improving profitability.

Forty irrigators, consultants and researchers participated in the 2015 CottonInfo Irrigation Automation Tour which visited the manufacturing facilities of Rubicon Water and Padman Stops. The tour also included seven farm visits to hear direct from farmers who are have already adopted automation equipment to deliver water around their farm. Some farms were fully automated with the ability to control their irrigation remotely. There was a range of irrigation layouts and automation equipment across all seven farms.

The tour has generated significant interest in investigating ways to automate surface irrigation systems in the Australian Cotton Industry. A comprehensive evaluation of the tour was conducted which showed that all participants have an increased knowledge and understanding of the automation equipment currently available and how it could be used on their farms. While all participants were keen to adopt some level of automation in their surface irrigation systems, the greatest barrier to adoption is the cost of the equipment and redevelopment. The tour provided an important networking opportunity for irrigators, consultants, researchers and retailers across the cotton, dairy and rice industries.

Irrigation trials have been conducted at Byee over the last two seasons as part of a Statewide project funded by the Cotton Research Council.

Irrigation scheduling in cotton using the water balance program WATERSCHED has been the subject of an extension development project in Queensland for two years. The project is funded by Cotton Research Council.

The Burdekin region of coastal north Queensland and other areas of tropical Australia provide a significant opportunity for Australian cotton industry stabilisation and contribution to drought proofing. The research that preceded this proposal made significant progress toward the development of a production package for the wet season that incorporates strategies for managing seasonal variability. The focus of this project was to continue and extend upon research work conducted in predecessor projects "The development of sustainable cotton farming systems for coastal north Queensland" and "Completion of Burdekin cotton feasibility study". The wet season in the monsoon tropics is a unique environment for cotton production in Australia. Hence, to reliably achieve this potential requires an agronomic production package tailored to and validated under local conditions rather than the accepted norms of southern production.

A changed political landscape now permits commercial cotton production in the Gulf region of NQ, the Kimberley and Pilbara of WA and the top end of the NT. A key objective this project was to provide expert knowledge to assist cotton investment decisions, validate the Burdekin production package for new wet season growing areas, extend past research to dry season cotton growing areas and support implementation of sustainable and economic production practices for those regions. The knowledge gained from this and predecessor projects was also relevant to cotton regions with climates not typical of the older industry (e.g. CQ and southern NSW) hence this project also supported relevant research and delivery activities in these regions.

Yield responses to increasing amounts of irrigation water have been demonstrated in the past by individual trials. In these trials watering occured at varying deficits of soil moisture below field capacity .

The Cotton Council has been funding our project, for which we intend to identify cotton varieties with efficiency of dry matter production when irrigation is expensive, or relatively inexpensive. The fonner will be achieved by identifying and testing varieties which show little discrimination against l3c assimilation, since it has been shown that this correlates with water-use efficiency. The latter will have both large photosynthetic capacity and large stomatal conductance. We are also investigating the nature of inheritance of water-use efficiency.

This project is part of the Wincott Development program for women in cotton. This is a project that empowers women in the cotton growing community to better manage difficult times that arise with declining water availability and drought. Skills based training enable communities to be more resilient and help manage challenges such as depression within the rural landscape. With the continuing drought, the need for a skills based workshop to develop resilience and leadership skill in women was identified at the Wincott AGM, at the Cotton Conference in August, 2014. 200 women attended and answered a survey of what they thought was needed in the industry. The need for a more skills based workshop in regional areas was listed as a high priority. In the months since then, the drought has hit home even further in most cotton-growing regions. The Wincott committee felt there was an even stronger need to help boost the resilience, build confidence and encourage leadership skills in the regions.

Determination of the petiole nitrate nitrogen concentration (PNN) in the youngest fully expanded leaf (YFEL) of cotton is a useful indicator of plant nitrogen status. In a review of literature Hearn (1981) reported for various phenological stages, l evels of petiole nitrate nitrogen (PNN) adequate for crop growth. These declined from 14000 - 25000 mg kg-1 at first square to 20QO mg kg- 1 at first open boll. He reported a critical level of 2000 mg kg- 1 above which growth would not decline.