The Cotton Wrap - The February 2016 Edition

The Cotton Wrap - The February 2016 Edition
Welcome to the 16th edition of the Cotton Wrap!!
Dryland/ Irrigated Cotton
Bollgard 3 will rise in price by 5% starting in the
2017/18 year along with changes to the RMP which
will come into force this coming season.
A field day planned for the 8th March in Narromine will
be well worth a look. Andrew Gill, an irrigated and
Dryland grower is in the process of installing a Hybrid
diesel/ solar system on his 5 Meg/day bore and he will
pay off the investment in around 4 years. He feels
Solar is a game changer but there are plenty of
people/ salemans in this space so be careful and do
your homework. Cottoninfo also has a very good
resource in this area with Jon Welsh.
The Dryland Cotton Growers Network have suggested
a field day on the afternoon of the 21st March to be
centred around Bellata. Warwick Stiller willl show us
some of the newest RRF varieties coming through at
“Dobikin” and Mike Bange will take us through the
hormone trials where he is endeavouring to moderate
plant growth and manage crop stress. Doug Cush has
modified a planter for moisture seeking cotton which
worked well this year and we will have a few results
from the cover cropping trial at “Belvedere”. Further
details to come.
A field day at “Waverley” Merah North on the 2nd will
show what Steve Carolan is trialling with some
automation and Padman Stops through the bank to
save labour. There has been some interest around this
with a couple of filed days down south at Griffith
creating quite a bit of interest.
Nth Vic, lambs, lucerne and wheat fully automated 2ha bays
Kieran also sent a picture of some Murray Cod fish
farming at Whitton. This is a 15 ML dam and fish swim
in nets with 2.5 m of water in a dam 5m deep. It is
Bore water and fingerlings are introduced at 10 cm
long and take 12 to 18 months to reach 1 kg. Cost to
produce is $9/kg and are sold for $18/kg. Estimates
are to clear $200,000 per dam
Fish farming at Whitton
Automated gate to an automated syphon at “Waverley”
Research
TERAFLOPS is the word of the month. I heard it in the
description of the new BOM super computer which
has a 1600 teraflop capacity. Better forecasting!!!
Mike Bange and I travelled to Emerald last week to
hand pick his trial’s at Rob Ingram’s and Ross Burnett.
These trials are with different hormone sprays which
evidence suggests may assist plants to retain fruit in
times of stress due mainly to waterlogging. Trial sites
at Bellata, Moree, Maules Crk and ACRI will bolster
these results.
I came across a story in Newswise, thanks to the
Trevor Johnstones’ newsletter where “a new
University of Florida-led study shows how Australian
For further information contact
Geoff Hunter on 0458 142 777
The Cotton Wrap - The February 2016 Edition
wheat farmers can use hypothetical 10-day weather
forecasts to increase their annual profits by hundreds
of thousands of dollars”. This meant a variety of
sowing dates and fertilizer rates based on 100%
accurate 10 day weather forecasts and yield results
from 1980 to 2006 in Western Australia and
compared this to a situation where the weather was
largely unknown, more like reality and the farmer
made his best guess. They then calculated any extra
profit from the difference in those two situations. So
what I get out of this is that if we had a 100% reliable
10 day weather prediction we could make much more
money. I imagine that winter rainfall in the East might
be a little more difficult to predict but this is where
models will possibly add value.
The Bird App is live!
See the link below from the CottonInfo website for
the new Birds on Cotton farms App. Stacey would
really appreciate your assistance in using and
promoting the App, remember it is an ID tool as well
as a monitoring tool so let us know what birds are in
your part of the landscape, Stacey have recorded 3
species of ducks just on her house dam!
www.cottoninfo.com.au/birds-cotton-farms-app.
URGENT!!!!
I had a call from Ingrid Goth to encourage participants
in the Annual Grower Survey. This informs research
and it even tells them whether to keep employing me
so get onto it and mention that you know me!!!
PLEASE CLICK HERE
Trials
The Nitrogen rate trial in Emerald was due to be
picked last week but due to rain has been delayed and
may even be grown out for a bit longer.
The trial in the Namoi has cutout and final leaf and
petiole tests have been taken with the next
mineralisation samples in the next 2 weeks. The nil
strip is still not showing a colour difference and fruit
numbers are excellent with big differences still not
evident.
Around the Traps
The weather gods have not smiled on the CQ region
with up to 200mm falling in some areas and up to 50%
yield losses estimated. Some growers will grow it on
and pick in June while others are taking it now.
Further south we had good rain in January through
some parts of Walgett, Burren Jct, Rowena, Bellata
and Cryon which has helped Dryland crops and some
irrigators with some overland flow. Much of the
Eastern side of Narrabri and Moree largely missed out
and February has been brutal in respect to water use.
Yield estimates still look reasonable so finger’s
crossed. Crops are well cutout in most of the Namoi
and many have finished final irrigations. A pretty nasty
hail storm swept through west of Bellata down
towards the hills with some severe damage reported
as the photo suggests.
Hail damage near Bellata to formally lush green 22 node cotton
What's On
2nd Mar- Transport meeting with Cotton Australia in
Wee Waa, contact Paul on 0448 094 883
2nd Mar- Irrigation workshop at “Waverley” Wee Waa,
contact Janelle Montgomery on 0428 640 990.
8th Mar- Solar power for Irrigation, a real life setup at
Narromine with Andrew Gill (a real cottongrower).
Contact Geoff on 0458 142 777
9th Mar- Grower of the Year field day at Reardon
Farms at Talwood, Geoff on 0458 142 777.
21st Mar- Proposed field day for Dryland Cotton trials,
contact Geoff on 0458 142 777.
2nd- 4th Aug- Cotton Conference at Gold Coast
Sayings of the Month
“Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by
your fears”, Arthur Koestler
“Each misfortune you encounter will carry in it the
seed of tomorrow’s good luck”, Og Mandino
For further information contact
Geoff Hunter on 0458 142 777
The Cotton Wrap - The February 2016 Edition
Player Profile
Introducing CSIRO’s newest recruit- Hizbullah Jamali
(Hiz)
Give us a brief history-Originally from Quetta in SW
Pakistan moved to Australia in 2007 and arrived in
Narrabri via Darwin, NZ and Griffith.
What will your role be here in Narrabri?-I will be
contributing and progressing work previously carried
out by Rose and Coast in the area of irrigation
management, specifically around canopy temperature
sensors and limited water scenarios. Put more simply
around scheduling based on the plant not soil.
Do you have a family here?-I married my childhood
sweetheart in 2008 who is now a doctor and we have
2 young children.
What is in store for the next 3 months?-I need to fully
understand the technology and make it “farm ready”.
We also have questions around re-setting
accumulated stress numbers after rainfall and how
does stress accumulation vary with high temp/ high
humidity compared to high temp/ low humidity.
temperatures and above median winter/spring
rainfall.
12 ft Black headed Python near Rolleston Qld
Until next time
Cheers
Geoff
Hiz
If you get a call you have a face to the voice.
Welshy’s Weather
Air pressure patterns have locked us into a stable
pattern of dry, warm weather. Multi-week models
suggest this could continue until around the 12th of
March - with the chance of showers 6-8th March.
Although the El-Niño situation is decaying rapidly and
ENSO state resets itself this time of year, predictive
systems tend to operate at lower skill than other
times. However, longer range global seasonal
forecasts seemed to be aligned on cooler
For further information contact
Geoff Hunter on 0458 142 777