Cotton grower Bruce Bailey is this season looking to beat his career-best yield of 17.99 bales/ha

Mr Bailey grew his biggest ever crop last season, averaging 18 bales per hectare, and with harvest set to start in the next week or two, he's feeling optimistic.

"I'd say this year will be equal to last year [but] some paddocks could be a bit better too, because when the 2021-22 season pick was taking place, we had a lot of rain which delayed us," Mr Bailey said.

He's growing 400ha of Sicot 606B3F and Sicot 748B3F this season under flood irrigation with son-in-law David Cross at his 800ha property, Rosewood West, 15km south west of Goondiwindi.

The Boggabilla area farmer will hire longtime Brookstead contractor Russell Keeley to pick and process the crop into round modules, which will then be sent to Namoi Cotton in Goondiwindi to be ginned into 227kg (500 pound) bales.

In the MacIntyre Valley where Bruce and David farm, Cotton Australia says 44,000ha irrigated cotton and 8000ha dryland has been planted with 15pc picked already and activity hitting full capacity.

It says while the dryland cotton could have used some late rain, the irrigated crop is looking very positive.

The peak body is also forecasting a crop of about 5.2 million bales for 2023.

With April industry reports putting it at about $690/bale, it's good gross income, but growers including Mr Bailey were also paying high prices for inputs such as fertiliser and herbicides in the lead up to sowing.

Wanting to set up the crop with plenty of nutrition, he bit the bullet and applied an NPK blend at 200kg/ha and urea at 500kg/ha.

"When we were putting the urea down, it was almost at the peak of what it was, but it's come off quite a bit since," he said.

That had to go on after sowing in early November. 2022, however, due to wet conditions.

"We put the fertiliser down post-plant this season because it was too wet with the constant rain," he said.

The cotton was sown on 1m row spacings with a John Deere tractor and disc planter into a full profile of moisture.

It has been irrigated nine times at about 1ML/ha per water and one insecticide spray was applied for aphids and thrips.

Ever since planting his first crop in 1985, Mr Bailey's been on a mission to produce higher yields with fewer inputs.

It's good business sense, but he also enjoys challenging himself.

The grower inched closer to his goals in 2008 when the 13 bales/ha crop he grew won the MacIntyre Valley cotton competition.

However, it was in 2022 when he reached the pinnacle of his career, winning the trophy with the 17.99 bales/ha crop.

He put the bumper yield down to optimal weather. On the preciseness of the result, Mr Bailey laughed and said decimal points meant everything when it came to competitions.

"At the time, 18 bales would've beat it," he said.

Still, he reckons there's room for improvement.

"We've increased five bales a hectare in 15 years. It'd be pretty handy if we can do that the next ten years - go up again five bales," Mr Bailey said.

At today's prices, that's an extra $3550 of income per hectare.

While nutrition and machinery were making inroads, he said he would probably achieve the biggest gains when plant breeders introduced improved varieties.

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