The project UNE1403, Prodessor of Soil Systems Biology, was established between UNE and CRDC in 2014. Dr Oliver Knox was recruited from Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) to the post marking his return to Australia and the cotton industry. In the first few months of the project the Cotton Hub at UNE was established and the remit of this aggregation of academics established. Over the past five years the Cotton Hub, under Oliver’s coordination, has been privileged to host the CRDC board twice at UNE, to develop a network of no fewer than 25 academics across five of UNE’s nine schools, support several PhD candidates and foster more collaborative responses to funding calls, both within UNE and in collaboration with other research partners. The Cotton Hub has also generated several Spotlight and Cottongrower articles to increase the industry awareness of research activities associated with the hub as well as developing a growing social media presence via both an on-line blog and the Twitter handle @CottonHubUNE.

The research conducted under this project has also resulted in a modified and improved method for the passive recovery of free living soil nematodes from heavy clay soils, such as the grey and brown vertosols that much of the industry relies on. The method represents a saving in sample processing time as well as a reduction in potential sample size, in theory making more rapid nematode recovery and analysis possible.

In addition to this, the work has used capacitance probe data sets to establish the extent of the industry where cotton is being grown in just the top 60 cm of the profile. The analysis conducted over three seasons from 2015 to 2018, showed that approximately 25% of fields suffer from sub soil constraints that prevent root exploration below 60 cm during peak vegetative growth. These numbers are similar to physical studies conducted through the McIntyre in the 1980’s, but have allowed areas from all of the cotton growing valleys to be studied across most years. The work has gone on to look at the nature of the constraints likely to be reducing root exploration and also observed that where an awareness of the constraint is known and appropriate management is put in place, profit margins remain good. Potential remedial management to alleviate some of these constraints is now being undertaken in other projects.

Border cells were again investigated under this project. Whilst newer cotton varieties have more than those that were commercially available 10 years ago there remains no link with the resistance to wilts or black root rot. Exogenous DNA (exDNA) from these cells was also quantified and appeared to have little effect on these pathogens, but it was also noted that cotton appears to produce less exDNA than peas and maize.

Finally, the project took on the delivery of the Cotton Production Course. The units continue to deliver a scientific approach to aspects of cotton production, protection, system development and position in the wider environment and to attract the majority of their students from industry.