This project funding supports the development of a longitudinal research framework, to quantify the impact of investing through the Cotton Research Development Corporation(CRDC) People program. A skilled and capable workforce is known to contribute to the industry’s profitability, sustainability & competitiveness. A key challenge is identifying and establishing metrics through which the industry can assess the value derived from investing in the upskilling and further development of labour and the benefits obtained through increased capacity. Industry is seeking to understand how development programs contribute to attracting and retaining people on farm and the value that employees place on having good working conditions.

The CRDC invests significant funds annually to provide educational opportunities for the industry. The purpose of this project is therefore to contribute to the future decision making about what type of people projects would be expected to reap the greatest benefit based on outcomes achieved todate.

Managing sustainable cotton production is becoming more difficult with the ever-increasing demands for limited resources. To assist with management of cotton crops the Technology Resource Centre (TRC) of the Australian Cotton CRC aims to develop and distribute a range of decision support systems. Some of these systems are computerised eg. entomoLOGIC, nutriLOGIC, and hydroLOGIC, which all come under the banner of CottonLOGIC. The package is accepted as an industry standard for integrated pest management and is widely distributed and used across the industry (registered copies 785 Dec. 1998; currently 1177 Sep. 2002). However, supporting existing products, changing computer systems (eg. Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 and now Windows 98), increasing demands for other computerised decision support tools to be developed and demands by industry to investigate new opportunities (eg. GIS capabilities), have placed significant pressure on the resources of the TRC to meet these needs. Presently, one full time programmer is assigned to developing CottonLOGIC decision support tools, however, much of his time is dedicated in supporting and refining CottonLOGIC to meet users requirements.

Access to further programming support will allow some of the tasks that are necessary for continued progress of decision support to be completed and thus allow the benefits of these tools to be passed on to industry much quicker whilst maintaining support.

Forward weather predictions form the 7th March 2014 to 21st March 2014

With growers now making decisions about how much nitrogen to apply and when, it's worthwhile considering the findings of the CottonInfo N trials: lower upfront N application may help improve NFUE.

Temperature plays many important roles in the growth and development of cotton. Low temperatures after sowing increase the time to emergence and reduce seedling vigour often leading to poor establishment, poor early growth and increased risk of seedling diseases. The timing of crop maturity, yield and fibre quality may also be affected. In addition there is some evidence to suggest that high temperatures may impact negatively on crop development. Research is being conducted to improve our understanding of the impact of temperature extremes on cotton performance. These studies will help improve the precision of both research and management in scenarios where extremes of temperature are likely. This paper describes this ongoing work and presents some results that have enabled better estimates of crop development and attempts to quantity the impact of cold shocks.

The important role that beneficial arthropods play in cotton farming systems is increasingly being recognised across the industry. Many growers and consultants are now growing unsprayed 'nursery' crops to generate beneficials on-farm, releasing mass-reared beneficials into crops to bolster their numbers, and using less disruptive insecticides to preserve them. In addition, some are regularly sampling beneficials to use estimates of their abundance and potential impact to make dynainic pest management decisions. An insight into the day to day behaviour of these beneficial species would greatly benefit integrated pest management (IPM) strategies for cotton by increasing our understanding of these biological control agents and our ability to better manipulate them. For example, would maculate ladybird beetles be less prone to an insecticide applied before or after sunrise? Is there an overlapping within plant distribution of green mind nymphs and lynxx spiders? The aim of the present study was to use direct visual observational methods to investigate the behaviour of a common predatory species, the damselbug in the cotton agro-ecosystem.

The DPI has been evaluating unsprayed strip crops planted beside dryland INGARD cotton as nurseries for beneficial arthropods over the past three seasons. This work has included evaluations of lablab, soybean, maize and sorghum in this role (Scholz et al 2000, Scholz et al. 2002). All of these crops harboured predatory insects and spiders at various times of the season, but not all of them readily harboured parasitoids. Trichogramma egg parasitoids are important beneficials on the Downs, and were most common in sorghum and maize, and less abundant in lablab and soybeans. Ideally an unsprayed nursery that harbours both predators and parasitoids is more desirable than one that primarily harbours predators. Unsprayed cotton offers potential to serve as a nursery for both predators and parasitoids, and was evaluated in this role during the 2001/02 season.

Ground rig and aerial application treatments were setup to deliver endosulfan to young cotton using 'large droplet placement' (LDP). Both treatments delivered similar amounts of the product to the target, despite the aircraft applying the full rate of the product, versus a banded rate (40%) for the ground rig treatment. In field efficacy conducted at commercial checking intervals (as measured by larval mortality, fruit retention ratios and damage levels) were equivalent for both the ground rig and aerially applied endosulfan. Laboratory bioassays conducted on field sprayed leaves showed a greater decline in larval mortality overtime for the ground rig than the aerial treatment. The fate of the additional insecticide applied by the aircraft was distributed between increased deposition on the ground and as drift leaving the field. At 400 metres downwind, the ground rig treatment resulted in one sixteenth the drift compared to the aerial treatment. The potential for commercially available anti-evaporant adjuvants to help reduce off target movement of fine droplets was evaluated using a new facility and techniques developed by CPAS.

OBJECTIVES (i) To evaluate the reliability of current SIR.A TAC sampling procedures and conversion equations relating proportion infestation to mean number of insects per plant. (ii) To develop sampling systems able to cope with a range of crop conditions including variable stand density and different cotton varieties. (iii) Investigate by simulation the threshold procedures for Heliothis to allow for variable plant density and growth stage.

To measure the effect of biotic factors (host crop, body size) and abiotic factors (temperature, humidity) on reproductive development, fecundity and longevity of adult Heliothis punctigera and H. armigera for incorporation into simulation models of Heliothis population dynamics.