Emerald grower happy with early plant

But Mr Geddes, Lot 161, Emerald, established all 184 hectares of his cotton on August 16 last year – one of few Central Highlands growers not to plant two crops.

And he said it is something he will do again.

The crop yielded 10.68 bales to the hectare, finishing a challenging year with a solid result.

“I’m pretty pleased with quality – it was good so we can’t complain about that,” he said.

“Prices on average were pretty good as well, so all-in-all it was a pretty satisfying year.”

After carefully watching early planting trials run by DAF’s Paul Grundy in previous years, Mr Geddes said he was keen to see the results of the early plant.

He said theoretically spring always seemed like the best period to establish a crop, and said the opportunity to plant early with Bollgard III was “fantastic”.

A refinement of management skills dealing with the new challenges faced would be the next step for local growers, he said. 

“At the end of the day my goal it to try to maintain a consistent yield year-in, year-out” he said.

Well-timed rainfall towards the end of the crop gave Mr Geddes a helping hand – with only seven irrigations needed to complete it. Usually he would see nine or 10. 

The early establishment before high temperatures gives the crop a chance to establish with less evaporation during the initial irrigations, which Mr Geddes said assisted with the low water use for the season. 

Mr Geddes said he was impressed with the strike rate of the early plant which had 13 seeds per metre planted and between 11 and 12 established.

Some were lost later due to heavy mirid and heliothis pressure (see story on right). 

Heading towards August, Mr Geddes said his sights were now set on seedbed preparation, with no winter crop to go in the ground. 

A handy 150mm of rain since harvest has broken down a lot of the previous crop’s residue, leaving the seedbeds in a great position for an early plant. 

He said there was no doubt whether he would plant early – and said August 1 will be the aim, weather dependent.

While Mr Geddes said planting the crop at two different periods would be an “ideal risk-management tool”, he was keen to perfect the early plant.  

INSECT PRESSURE: 

WHILE the yields were strong and quality stronger for Cam Geddes, Lot 161, Emerald, the season was not one without challenges. 

He said early insect pressure was “relentless”, with heliothis and mirids attacking not only early in the season – but right through until December. 

“It was something I had never seen before,” he said. 

“We tried to establish a good beneficial population to try to get on top of them, but it was just too much. 

“The Bollgard III technology was doing its job, but unfortunately the heliothis have to ingest part of the plant and we were getting a lot of damage, which was beyond what we are used to.”

Mr Geddes said despite utilising a lure and attract product, it was a numbers game; and the insects won. 

“We had very poor retention at 10 nodes, we basically had one square per plant,” he said.

Mr Geddes said management alterations got them through the “concerning” period.