PICKING has wrapped up at Colorada, Emerald, after September-planted cotton was grown on.
Farm manager Dean Thompson has been managing Colorada for three years after returning to the region with his wife and four children.
He said the irrigated crop was all planted in late September 2017, unlike many farms in the region which split their planting dates throughout the new window of August 1 to December 31.
Colorada also have dryland cotton in the ground, which was planted over three weeks in December.
Mr Thompson said picking the 480ha crop in the first week of April wasn’t in the plan.
After hot days and warm, humid nights the crop began dropping fruit and the decision was made to let it grow on.
“Some had the legs under it to grow on a little bit more so we’ve (grown it on) to make it up,” Mr Thompson said.
He said the grown on cotton was going “a lot better” than the earlier picked fields and was averaging between 10 and 11 bales to the hectare during picking.
“Some of the earlier stuff was quite a bit less though,” he said.
With minimal bug and insect pressure and generally favourable weather, Mr Thompson said all-in-all, the season was a “pretty good one”.
“There were some 40-plus degree days for a week, a little bit of overcast weather but not too bad, but other than that it was a pretty good growing season overall,” he said.
Majority of the crop is the 748 variety, which Mr Thompson said he would probably plant less of next season.
“It’s just that extra risk to manage I think, we just don’t need it,” he said.
The dryland crop is coming ahead in leaps and bounds.
“It could do with a bit of rain but it is looking quite good,” he said.
”The dryland was a great strike, it was planted three weeks through December with some rainfall.
“We just had rain at the right times, it’s holding 100 bolls/metre at the moment and it’s just finishing the top fruit off.”