With the cotton season upon us, growers across Queensland are ramping up their preparation efforts.
Goondiwindi cotton grower, Tom Arnott, is in full swing ahead of a mid-October planting.
His 1400 hectare property, Fairfield, grows 700ha of irrigated cotton each year and Mr Arnott said this season looks promising.
Relying on water from the Macintyre River, Mr Arnott said water allocations in the valley have been pretty good in the past couple of years.
“We were really fortunate that there was a big run in the river at the end of last season, so most growers in the valley would have their on-farm storages pretty well full,” he said.
“The outlook water wise, production wise is very encouraging.
“We just don’t need another summer like last year.”
Mr Arnott has been farming in the Macintyre Valley for 25 years and said last year was the hottest he’d experienced.
“It was such an extreme event,” he said.
“It was just too hot.”
Check out our full cotton pre-plant wrap up here.