COTTON growers who’ve adopted round bale pickers are closer to optimising their operations performance, thanks to research developments into the harvesting technology.
Researchers from the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture (NCEA) have been “assessing the impacts of new harvesting technologies on cotton through an impact assessment framework” – a project funded by the Cotton Research Development Corporation (CRDC).
Senior research fellow for soil science Dr John McLean Bennett provided findings at the Macintyre Valley Cotton Growers Association’s end of season review on Wednesday afternoon.
The study focused on managing the increased soil compaction and energy use seen by the John Deere 7760 (JD7760) round bale picker, caused by its heft, which is double the conventional basket picker’s 20 tonne operating weight.
Dr Bennett said the JD7760’s bigger field footprint was worsened by the machine’s dual wheels on the front axle - designed to spread the load over four wheels for road traffic - resulting in 66 per cent of furrows trafficked.
Through the three-year study, NCEA conducted a variety of in-field trials using Controlled Traffic Farming systems.
A number of growers have adopted the system to reduce furrows trafficked during picking, Dr Bennett said, where the front axle is reduced to two wheels and the distance between wheels increased to 3 metres.
“Auscott have trialled the use of this machine picking four rows of cotton, which means 50pc of the field is trafficked,” Dr Bennett said.
“If the JD7760 was picking six rows, this would further be reduced to 33pc of furrows.
“This is important because compaction is irreversible in the short term, meaning the soil’s ability to infiltrate and supply water is reduced, as well as energy required to cultivate increased.”
Row spacing was reviewed as part of the JD7760 trials at the Auscott site.
Both the JD7760’s usual configuration and the CTF was trialled side-by-side with a respective row spacing of 1.5m and 1m row spacing.
While this resulted in less cotton per hectare in the CTF test, results showed comparative gross margin for the two systems in the first year, although slightly less yield in the CTF system.
Interestingly, the 2014/15 season saw comparable yields between both the CTF and usual systems.
“This provides good motivation for growers to move to a CTF system, which may see better gross margins into the future,” Dr Bennett said.
