Atherton Tablelands cotton growers say cotton gin is critical to safeguard local industry

Redbend Farming is co-owned between Nick and Morgan Reynolds and Terry and Trina Tranter.

For 12 years, the two families milked one of Queensland's largest herds of dairy cattle, peaking at 1200 cows, before transitioning out to become one of the country's largest growers of peanuts, oats, hay, barley, and maize in 2012.

They sold their entire dairy herd to Millmerran's Lemontree Feedlot.

In 2019, their cropping enterprise expanded tenfold after purchasing the neighbouring 2800 hectare property, Mandalee Station.

Mr Reynolds said it soon became viable to diversify into cotton.

"Purchasing Mandalee Station has doubled the size of our cropping operation, which has essentially made cotton a viable option for us," he said.

"Growing cotton at Redbend on 400ha was probably not really the cropping option, whereas going over and purchasing Mandalee has doubled our irrigation area tenfold.

"Cotton was also very attractive to us as a solid summer cropping option."

The invasion of fall armyworm (FAW) on maize crops on the Atherton Tablelands in 2020, also forced Redbend to consider moving to other crops.

"We had a block in Ravenshoe where we growing some summer maze and they impacted the crop there," Mr Reynolds said.

"The FAW has added hugely to the cost of growing maize corn and it's probably trimmed off $50 a tonne in terms of direct cost.

"That's a fairly significant cost, but the bigger issue we found was the eventual resistance to some of the chemicals that we were using to control it."

Redbend completed a cotton trial in 2021, planting 100ha of irrigated cotton, with the crop yielding 7.5 bales/ha.

Mr Reynolds said the result of the trial gave them the confidence to put in 440ha of cotton this season, which was planted on December 7, 2021.

"Our trial cotton yielded reasonably well last year, but it's yielding a lot better this year," he said.

"I think once we get out of these funny weather patterns, if we ever do, we'd enjoy better yields.

"We've used nearly no water on our cotton in terms of irrigation because of the rain - I don't think we would have used 1.5ML on the entire crop."

Mr Reynolds said they planted their early cotton in a skip row configuration, because of their variable summer rainfall and to reduce boll rot.

They planted two 30 inch rows and left a 60 inch gap to increase sunlight and airflow through the crop.

"That was a bit of an experiment around trying to get sunlight and wind through the crop to dry it our, so we could limit the boll rot," Mr Reynolds said.

Redbend focused on strategic irrigation with their cotton this season, but with the impact of seasonal conditions, they used no more than 1.5 mega litres of irrigation on their crop this season.

"We've used nearly no water on our cotton in terms of irrigation, because of the rain," Mr Reynolds said.

"We've had an average rainfall year, but we've had a really heavy weather events come through.

"We got a thunderstorm here in the last week of June, and not in the 22 years of being here, have I seen a thunderstorm here in June."

Annual hay production is also a major part of Redbend's operation, and Mr Reynolds said the seasonal conditions impacted their business.

"Anyone that's growing grass in the far north would have thought this year was sensational due to the rain," he said.

"That's impacted our hay business and we haven't sold nearly the hay we generally would because the demand has not been there."

Redbend was forced to prolong their pick by one month, due to wet weather and picker shortages.

"We delayed our defoliation by a month, just to fit in with our picker contractor," Mr Reynolds said.

"We haven't had too much of an issue in sourcing a cotton picker this season.

"Sam Dawson is picking our cotton this season and he's got three pickers on the Tablelands this year.

"That's Sam really showing an interest in the industry up here too."

Redbend is a fortnight away from picking their remaining crop, but they were on track to yield close to 9 bales/ha.

With their closest cotton gin 1100km south at Emerald, Mr Reynolds said the high price forgives the cost of their freight.

"We're giving away about $100 per bale for freight costs," he said.

"High cotton prices justify the freight, but if cotton was $450 or $500 a bale, we probably wouldn't be growing it, just because the freight is too expensive."

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