Innovative trials and new technologies to improve water and labour efficiency was the focus of Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD) Farms' field day this week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
About 120 people attended the annual field day on Wednesday, February 20, which was held in conjunction with the Lower Namoi Cotton Growers Association's field day.
With growers and industry professionals from Wee Waa, Narrabri, Moree, Gunnedah, Goondiwindi, the Macquarie Valley, and even a bus load of students from the University of Sydney in attendance, CSD extension and development agronomist for Namoi Valley and Walgett Bob Ford said it was a great day.
"It was a good spread of people from all different backgrounds," he said.
"It went off well."
The day started at Merah North where attendees had the opportunity to inspect some of the new irrigation techniques being undertaken.
"A number of farmers at Merah North have put in a bankless channel and smart syphons for water and labour efficiency and they seem to be getting benefits out of these changes they have made," Mr Ford said.
"With the way things are at the moment with irrigation and water … we need to be looking at the most effective ways to get water on and off the crop and in the most efficient and economical way.
"The main thing [about that part of the day] is seeing the options in terms of different techniques for irrigation that might help many growers down the track, particularly if they can show that are benefiting from these new irrigations systems."
READ ALSO:
The second half of the field day looked at the trials CSD are undertaking at CSD Farms, such as residual herbicide, plant uniformity, moisture absorbency, delayed flowering, plant population and Verticillium wilt management, as well as discussion on the new XtendFlex™ technology. Key note speakers were Dr Michael Bange from CSIRO Narrabri, and Dr Eric Koertz, weeds specialist with NSW department of agriculture.
"We have been conducting trials at this site for three years now with the main aim of improving seed germination and establishment and the under the Faststart™ banner of improving plant growth in the first 70 days of the crops life," Mr Ford said.
"There's been a lot of work done recently and results from these trials will be available soon."
For example, a substantial amount of work has been done on looking at ways to minimise the impact of Verticillium wilt - one of the major diseases of cotton, particularly in the Namoi valley.
"A number of Verticillium Wilt management trials and populations trials have been set up this season to try and replicate some of the positive outcomes that were seen last season in these trials," Mr Ford said.
"Rob Long from Crown Analytics has collected many soil cores and with the work we are doing with stem cutting for verticillium incidence, we should be able correlate the impact of the various treatments in the trial on the inoculum levels in the soil."
Mr Ford said in conjunction with Dr Bange’s team, they are getting close to revamping the replant calculator tool in a modern format, which will also become big down the track as the industry moves towards using smart phone technology to monitor and manage plant establishment.
And while the drought is at the back of everyone's minds, Mr Ford said on the whole, the day was positive with plenty of great feedback from the day.
"At the end of the day, all of us don't know what the weather's going to do," he said.
"You can only look forward, there's no use looking back because you can't change anything.
"The drought has been pretty bad and there is a lot of people being affected with a lot of dryland crops not going to make it this year.
"However there's a lot of work being done, such as moisture absorbency trials targeted at dryland crops to help growers to establish their crop a bit better.
"Let’s hope we can get some rain sooner rather later."
