This season is shaping up into a big cotton plant with above average rainfall throughout most of New South Wales and also some good rainfall now occurring in late September in Queensland.
Most major storages across NSW have been filling rapidly since August with full allocations for irrigation water across most of the river systems.
Queensland has been a little different in that variable rain throughout the state in winter looked like there would be a reduced area planted to cotton.
Good rainfall in September has been filling soil profiles and with the reduced pricing for grains, cotton is looking like a good choice.
With the strong performances last season of the new varieties containing the Bollgard 3 genes its looks like this season could be a good year, particularly while prices remain high.
Seed orders of cotton planting seed are now double that of the June forecast but Cotton Seed Distributors has significant reserves of seed on hand to meet the industry’s needs.
While the varieties and treatments of choice are becoming limited, CSD has enough conforming seed on hand to supply an area 20 per cent bigger than the 2011 season.
Lead times on supply from order to availability are running at about four weeks.
This year will see the E&D team from CSD conduct a substantial trial program carried out across the entire cotton industry.
There are several new and developing areas where, CSD will be running trials.
Due to good winter rainfall cotton will be grown in Coonamble, Coolah, Parkes and several sites in Victoria.
Follow CSD’s website to find out how these trials are going throughout the season.
