Lack of water reduces acreage sown to cotton

Growers in the northern parts of the Macquarie region are 80 per cent through picking while southern areas are 40 to 50 per cent, according to Cotton Info regional development officer for Macquarie and Bourke regions, Amanda Thomas.

"This season only 8500 hectares went in compared to 21,000 last season," she said.

"With an allocation of only 2 per cent, growers were able to use any carry over from the season before and those using ground water were able to plant more area."

To manage low water allocations, Mrs Thomas said growers had applied a few different strategies to keep the plants happy.

"Given the two seasons before this one, growers were able to be realistic when doing water budgets for the 2014/15 season," she said.

"If you didn't have a good amount of secure water, it was not the time to take a punt."

Following grass roots grants from the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC), growers were able to trial Canopy Temperature Sensors to allow them to monitor canopy and ambient temperatures and get a better handle on when the plant became stressed.

"Many growers were using irrigation systems such as sub-surface drip and overhead systems to save water where possible," she said.

In tight water years, Mrs Thomas said growers had put more thought into which paddocks were cultivated for cotton to minimise on-farm losses and increase water efficiency, utilising Capacitance probes and extensive weather forecasting tools when irrigation scheduling.

Macquarie growers suffered some black root rot, rhizoctonia and pythium troubles early in the season as well as some cases of verticillium wilt.

"On the insect front it was pretty quiet," Mrs Thomas said.

"We had a few pests we haven't seen in numbers for some years, such as the pale cotton stainer, rear their ugly heads.

"Silver leaf whitefly numbers were varied over the valley and, in some cases, needed controlling but on the whole it was a quiet year."

In-crop rainfall was recorded between 280 and 300 milliltres in the Warren and Trangie areas and 370mm at the Narromine end of the valley.

While only a small amount of cotton has been ginned so far, Mrs Thomas said she was seeing a great result.

"Aside from a few heavy downpours, conditions for defoliation and picking have been excellent," she said.

"The leaf has come off nicely and we are mostly seeing a good, clean pick."

"Yields are up by at least two bales on last season and, for the area planted, we should see a lot of cotton come out of the Macquarie Valley."

Auscott grower services manager Mike Shields, Warren said it was very early days at the gin.

"We've really only just started but what we've seen is very, very good quality," he said.

"There is talk of record breaking on-farm yields well over 14 bales a hectare compared to the average of 10 bales/ha last year."

He said it was too early to tell whether recent downpours had affected quality.

"Cotton harvested before the rain is looking excellent but we haven't seen the post-rain cotton to see what the damage is," he said.

"It could be up to $40 to $60 discount but prices have been on our side so there's the upside."