NEEK Morawitz, Windy Hill and Argoon, Comet, planted most of his 550 hectares of cotton early in the window – and he said it’s a case of “so far, so good”.
Mr Morawitz planted 400ha of cotton in the first week of August, which was the earliest allowed in the extended planting window offered by the introduction of Bollgard III seed to the market.
After harvesting chickpeas in October, Mr Morawitz finished the season’s crop with 150ha planted on October 20.
The Morawitz family usually plant anywhere between 400 and 600ha of cotton, but will plant as much as 800ha if the price is good.
“There was about 4000ha of cotton planted in August in Central Queensland, so we represent roughly 10 per cent of that,” Mr Morawitz said.
“I’ve been following the trial work that has been done up here and I have been impressed by what has been achieved with the early cotton.
“Last year we were trial cooperators on a commercial-scale early trial of August-planted cotton and it went exceptionally well.”
The early trial on Mr Morawitz’s property yielded an impressive 14 bales to the hectare, and he said if all goes well he is hoping to achieve about the same for this season’s crop.
“The other reasoning behind the early plant is maybe we can pick it before the weather turns nasty,” he said.
“There’s always a bit of risk there whenever you plant, but our spring growing conditions are very good, very conducive to setting a high fruit rate on the crop, and if we can be lucky through the middle of January we might just get it off.”
While the early plant will free up land in time to plant a summer crop of mungbeans or sorghum, Mr Morawitz said his aim was only to “do a good job of the cotton” and achieve a good yield.
He said planting majority of the crop early was “a bit of a trial”, and he also planted 55ha of dryland cotton in the first week of August, which is highly unusual, but heavy winter falls afforded the family the chance to take that gamble.
”With the early cotton there’s some water efficiency gains as well,” he said.
“The crop is not so demanding for water early in spring, it’s a bit cooler, and basically by Christmas our watering will be finished on that crop.
“I think there’s a lot of aspects of the early plant which makes good sense.
“I guess the beauty with where we’re at now is we have a wide window of opportunity to plant cotton, and it’s something we’ve been after for a long time and with Bollgard III it’s unreal - it’s exceptionally good.”
Kelly Butterworth
Rockhampton-based journalist covering all things ag.
Rockhampton-based journalist covering all things ag.
