Constant rain proves challenging for coastal cotton

On the one hand, it has meant Mr Doyle has not had to water his irrigated cotton crop more than once.

On the other hand, the wet weather created quite a few issues when it came time to spray the crop with a chemical to stunt the bushes and promote fruit or boll growth.

And, If it does not stop showering before harvest time that too could create some problems.

For the third-generation cane farmer, this is only the second year that Mr Doyle has planted cotton and there has not been two weeks where it has not rained since he planted.

He said this year has been challenging with the wet weather and he hopes it drys up before it was time to harvest.

"If the cotton boll can't dry out, you can't get the moisture levels right to harvest it - and you do get a lot more fungi and mildew on it and you've got to spray for that," he said.

"The weather hasn't been kind to us as far as that goes - we've had to get local contractors in with drones to spray the growth hormone RX380 to put fruit on and spray Roundup to control the weeds.

"We had three or four weeks here where it was just raining, windy and showers and you just couldn't get near the paddocks so that was a big issue."

As the cotton bushes are a lot bigger than they should be, Mr Doyle expects this season's cotton yield to be down around 3.3 bales/acre.

For his first crop last year, he reckoned he averaged 3.8 bales/acre for the irrigated cotton.

With his wife Renee, Mr Doyle has 350 acres at Maryborough of which 250 acres is under cotton and the rest is under sugar cane.

With his father Darryl, they lease land at Glenorchy where 300 acres is given over to cotton, 170 acres to peanuts and 150 acres to sugar cane.

Mr Doyle said he decided to grow cotton as a rotational crop as there was a lot of RSD (Return Stunting Disease) in his cane.

"So we ploughed it out and could have done soybeans, but I figured we'd try something different that was more high value and it seems to be working," he said.

"Cotton is a bit more intensive than cane - there's a lot more spraying and watering, and a lot of bugs, but it's been a learning experience."

Mr Doyle said as cotton was Roundup Ready and not a grass like cane they were able to clean the ground up after cane to kill out all the weeds and guinea grass, and try to break the disease cycle.

With 20 per cent of his cotton crop dryland and the rest irrigated, Mr Doyle planted CSD cotton varieties 606 and 704 because, he said, that was what the Nutrien Ag agronomist recommended for the area.

"There's other growers doing cotton in the area and the agronomist reckons those are the best varieties for this area for the best yield," Mr Doyle said.

Come harvest time, Mr Doyle will harvest the crop with his own machines and truck it, one load a day, with his own trucks to Queensland Cotton Gin in Dalby.

He said despite the distance to Dalby it was still profitable to grow cotton at Maryborough.

"If we get 3.5 bales to the acre that will be a bonus. The price of cotton is up and down, but I think the price is looking pretty good at the moment - and sugar is fighting back again, it went right up, but it's back again. It is what it is," he said.

"We will probably go cotton for two, maybe three years at the most, but probably a two-year fallow for cane is what we'll aim for and then go back into cane.

"In some areas of our farm, we only grew cotton once and put cane back in and then I ploughed out more cane and put cotton in. Until we get into the cycle, some paddocks might be three years for cotton, but we're aiming for two."

Mr Doyle said two other farmers had been growing cotton in the Maryborough area long before he started.

"I think a lot of people are looking to see how it grows here on the coast, but those two have been doing it for five or six years now so it does work," he said.