Australia
April 27, 2005
Craig
McDonald,
Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD)
Extension and Development Agronomist at Narromine, (pictured,
with Neil Mill in a crop of Sicot 71BR)
gives an update on how picking is progressing in central and
southern NSW.
Picking has been underway in
the Macquarie since early April. There was a little bit of
dryland picked north of Warren prior to that but generally the
irrigated crops started in early April. Early indications are
very good as far as yield potential goes. It is quite
encouraging to see the number of modules lined up at the end of
fields and the comments from growers as to how many modules have
come off particular fields and they have never had so many
modules coming off fields which is good.
Pictured: Craig
McDonald and Neil Mill in a crop of Sicot 71BR
In the Lachlan Valley, picking
will start there fully next week. There has been one farm
picking for a little while. Early indications are reasonably
good so far. There is modules going into the gin there and the
gin should start, I think they are going to be starting this
week and then they will be ginning full time after that.
Yes, very good indications as
to early yields. A lot of crops will go 4 bales plus but when we
get some ginned we can work out turnouts and then get it classed
looking at fibre quality and that sort of thing.
So far mainly Bollgard® II
crops they have come in a little bit earlier than the
conventional crops. The conventional crops do look extremely
good. They have certainly benefited from late season lighter
insect heliothis pressure late season so they have really
compensated for missing some of that fruit mid season when the
pressure was high. Some areas have reported fairly heavy egg
pressure during the season up to 200 plus eggs per metre.
The Bollgard stood up to it
fairly well. There was a fair bit of spraying on the
conventional to keep control of it so there has been some fruit
loss there but certainly the warm end of the season has really
helped that and they got a lot of top crop on the conventional
crops so they will come in very well but early days as yet on
those.
A major contributor to the good
yields and the good seasons here in the Macquarie and Lachlan
has been a fairly mild season. We had a very good start, quite
warm conditions, some people were able to plant in the 2nd last
week in September. The crops got off to a reasonable start with
a couple of cold snaps but generally got through pretty well and
its been a very mild season.
We haven’t really had the
extremes of heat as compared to the last two seasons which
really does help as far as cotton development without having
those extremes. Any crops that have been fully watered, water
has been fairly limited in Central and Southern New South Wales
unfortunately but any crops that have had full water and have
been watered on time have done extremely well. There was one
crop north of Warren planted on double skip, it received a
watering up and then one in-crop watering and its done
remarkably well.
It
was planted on double skip which certainly did help but
virtually no in season rain it looks like doing possibly a bale
and half across the whole field so it may be an opportunity to
re-look at the water situation in limited water to sort of plant
more area and stretch that water a little bit further but the
fully irrigated crops are going to do extremely well.
Prospects for next season: with
Burrendong Dam at 15% at the moment the prospects aren’t very
good. Wiangla Dam is also about 9%.
The forecasts for winter
rainfall are pretty good – 70% chance of better than average
rainfall so based on that prediction the prospects have to be
improving a little bit for next season and as we see an increase
in price we should se pretty well full production in this area
given a reasonable allocation of water.
Just to sum up, yes very good
yields so far, indicative yields, quality certainly looks very
good, looks good in the fields, the cotton is a brilliant white
colour, ideal weather for picking so far. We are probably about
30% maybe 35% through in the Macquarie Valley, the Lachlan and
further South Murrumbidgee Valleys are very early days yet.
There has been quite a bit of
2-4D damage in the Macquarie Valley particularly that has
severely affected yields unfortunately across some fairly big
areas so that has been a down side this season, massive amounts
of 2-4D or phenoxy drift so that has put a dampener on what has
generally been a very good season finishing up quite well in a
very small cotton area unfortunately but certainly looking
forward to a bigger and better season next year.
Further Information: Craig
McDonald |