In his paper to you, Mike Logan, our youngest Cotton Australia Board Director, said to you, &quote;unless we have the support of the local communities, we are doomed to extinction&quote;.

In cotton, phosphorus (P) is important for early seedling vigour, plant establishment and root development.

Transgenic Bt (Ingard) cotton has been the biggest step achieved so farm reducing insecticide applications to cotton in Australia.

We compared the responses of dryland and irrigated cotton to damage caused by two spotted spider mites in a field experiment at Narrabri. Mites colonies developed at similar rates in irrigated and dryland crops.

Many growers show little or no interest in their cotton once it leaves the farm gate.

Microplitis demolitor (Wilkinson) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is a critical component of IPM in Australian cotton.

Tractors and harvesters that steer themselves would have sounded like science fiction 10 years ago, yet today there are several systems which can effectively guide machinery.

The adoption of integrated Pest Management technologies and strategies, which are being extensively researched and developed in the cotton industry, has been very limited.

Good average irrigated yields have been achieved on the Darling Downs by most growers this season while dryland crops on average did not fare so well due to the unseasonal hot dry conditions.

The human resource is the most important resource in our industry. Human resource managers and trainers often repeat these words in such presentations as this.

Farming systems are continually attracting interest amongst the growing community, since input costs are continually increasing and returns behave in a cyclic nature.

Australian cotton production relies heavily on the use of pesticides for control of Helicoverpa spp. As a result insecticide resistance has become a major problem (Daly and Paschalidis 1994).

The imperatives for a comprehensive training scheme in the cotton industry are easily identifiable: looming skills shortage, new and complex technologies to be adopted, best management practices to be implemented and

(I) To continue and develop the work begun in UsQ6C which focuses on residue handling in back to back cotton and rotation crops while optimising the control of diapausing heliothis pupae.

Organophosphate insecticides are valuable insecticides used to control Helicoverpa armigera on cotton in Australia. Organophosphates most commonly used for Helicoverpa spp.

Marketing, specifically generic marketing, must be one of the linchpins of any strategy to &quote;cover our future&quote;. The fact that generic marketing must be done is a given.

VAM are important in the growth of cotton and the production of lint. VAM are a normal part of cotton plants and they are usually present in the roots. Only in their absence do we realise their importance.

The past growing season (1997/98) was the second commercial year of INGARD cotton varieties with some 60,000 ha planted across all growing regions.

This project was designed to support the deployment and continued use of transgenic (INGARD) cotton in the Australian cotton industry.

When breeders cross two cotton varieties together there are millions of potential new combinations of genes that are generated in the progeny from the two parent plants.