growers@sgcotton.com.au Roger Tomkins - Greenmount Press

Germinating
ideas
By CSD Extension and Development
Team
IN this edition we address the question of what to do when
cotton prices are lower than expected. Over the past six
months there has been a correction in the cotton price, from
the highs of last season ($1000 per bale) to the lows of mid May
at $350 per bale.
This has a number of implications for this year’s crop. Around
35 to 40 per cent of the new season crop has been sold at prices
between $470 and $550 per bale. This has meant that overall
irrigation area should be similar to last season’s record hectares.
Having water in all the major storages has allowed growers to
forward sell bales not just for the new season crop but two to
three years out.
The major issue lies with dryland acreage which could be
lower. Many dryland growers do not forward sell their crop for
two major reasons. One, they must have planting moisture to get
the crop planted. So many will wait until the crop is in the ground
and sell bales based on what contracts are available from the
merchants. Secondly, as the cotton price falls, other crops may
become more attractive for dryland growers.
The question of soil moisture at planting is an important one
but even more importantly is not to lock yourself out of the
opportunity to plant cotton by placing herbicides down that are
not compatible with cotton. Price over time fluctuates greatly and
can move quite dramatically as we have seen over the past year.
Keeping your options open allows you to move in or out of a
cropping option quite late in the cropping window.
Other things to look at are the long term performance of
dryland cotton over other commodities. We know that since the
introduction of Bollgard II and RRFlex technology that cotton
FIGuRE 1: Rainfall use efficiency over time
calculated as bales/mm of summer rain – each
point represents the average rainfall use
efficiency for all the regions
has been made a lot simpler which has allowed growers to
concentrate on other management implications throughout the
season which has lifted yields. Farmers have been able to adopt
dryland systems incorporating stubble retention, minimum till
and wider row configurations that have helped maintained fibre
quality and helped with yield consistency over time.
Of course yield in dryland cotton is dictated by rainfall. CSIRO
has shown over 15 years that variety yield increases are tracking
irrigated yield increases at around 0.1 bale per hectare per year.
This work was conducted by looking at the specific rainfall for
the 15 years and comparing that to variety performance to work
out what gain had been made from breeding. The result can be
seen in Figure 1 which shows long term variety yield increase as
portrayed in bales per mm.
Further, variety breeding and adaption to dryland production
has meant that fibre quality has improved. A good example of
this is with the CSD award handed out for the best fibre quality
in a trial, known as the Dr Norm Thompson Shield. This year is a
close competition as seen in Table 1. Interestingly, these growers
are not irrigators – they are all dryland growers (still waiting on
final results).
The improvement in fibre quality has meant that growers can
be confident that even in hot dry years their fibre length will hold
up. Furthermore, growers, due to improved fibre length varieties,
have been able to reduce the width of the skip row, particularly in
regions that have reasonable seasonal rainfall, giving them better
overall yield potential.
Similarly, if we look at yields over the past few years there
have been outstanding results in dryland which shows the vast
improvement over varieties that were around a decade ago.
This is evident when we look at the contenders for the CSD
Alan Brimblecombe Shield, which is awarded every year for
outstanding results in a CSD dryland variety trial.
Yields over the past three years have been outstanding in
dryland and this has mainly been on the back of the performance
TABLE 1: Candidates for the Dr Norm Thompson
Shield for best fibre quality in a CSD trial
Grower Variety Length Strength Micronaire
Ian Gourley Sicala 1.31 (42) 33.8 4.2
Narrabri, NSW 340BRF
Ben Coulton Sicala 1.30 (42) 34.3 4.4
North Star, Qld 340BRF
Andrew Gill Sicala 1.32 (42) 33.8 3.7
Narromine, NSW 340BRF
Angus McClymont
Goondiwindi, Qld
Sicala
340BRF
1.29 (41) 33.2 3.9
August–September 2012 The Australian Cottongrower — 53