Central Highlands’ roads are still littered with cotton as growers finish harvesting last season’s cotton – but on Tuesday came August 1, marking the opening of the new season’s planting window.
With cotton now in the ground 11 months of the year after the introduction of Bollgard III – CQ growers are making up their own minds about when they will plant.
Neek Morawitz, Windy Hill and Argoon, Comet, said the decision to begin planting his 650 hectares of cotton on August 1 was an easy one.
“Temperatures are good, it’s warm, and it looks to be warm for the next week,” he said.
“It (going early) has worked well for us for a couple of seasons, so we will keep on working the concept and see what we can learn from it. Prices for the new crop have slid off a bit to sub-$500 again.
“There’s probably some volatility in the market as always, and there will be opportunities to make some good sales.”
Mr Morawitz has already pre-sold about 10 to 15 per cent of his crop.