CottonInfo: Crop to Top

In this special pod recording live from the 2024 Australian Cotton Conference hear from CottonInfo’s Technical Lead for Energy & Climate Jon Welsh about his recent analysis of costings & economics associated with irrigation conversion projects at two very different cotton farming operations in NSW, as well as the farm managers who oversaw the changes - Ben Kirkby and Darren Eather. CottonI...

In this episode of the Crop to Top 'Biosecurity Excellence Series' we find out more about the National Biosecurity Hub - a centralised platform for biosecurity training to support biosecurity preparedness, response and recovery. Kirsten Phillips from Biosecurity Queensland was instrumental in the development of the Hub and joins us to explain exactly how it came about and how members of...

In the last podcast in the Biosecurity Excellence Series, we were joined by Doug McCollum from Cotton Australia and Stuart Kearns from Plant Health Australia to talk about the soon to be released revised cotton industry biosecurity plan and discussed how high priority pests are reviewed and allocated. In this episode, we’re going one step further and doing a deep dive into one of the high priority...

There’s a new industry biosecurity plan for the cotton industry due for release shortly - but what exactly IS a biosecurity plan, and how is the pest status of particular pests actually determined? Find out the answers to these questions and more with two of Australia’s most knowledgeable professionals when it comes to cotton biosecurity - Cotton Australia's Doug McCollum and Plant Health Aus...

There’s just 6 weeks to go until the 2024 Australian Cotton Conference on Queensland’s Gold Coast! Tune in to hear more from CottonInfo’s Technical Lead for Biosecurity, Sharna Holman, about why the CottonInfo team is planning to help ‘Set the Gold Standard’ in biosecurity awareness at Conference this year.

Pre-emergent (residual) herbicides are becoming increasingly important in weed control strategies but there's much to consider when planning a residual herbicide program, as they do require more planning when considering crop rotations. In this podcast we hear from QDAF's Jeff Werth on the benefits of adopting a residual herbicide program when it comes to improved overall weed control an...

Irricom 2024 - CottonInfo’s third irrigation forum - will take a deep dive into understanding the Water Use Efficiency of siphon-less and bankless designs. Tune in to hear more from CottonInfo’s Technical Lead for Irrigation Lou Gall on the value of attending this event on Feb 27th in Narrabri. More details & RSVP here: Irricom 2024, Narrabri | CottonInfo

  Welcome to Season 3 of Crop to Top and the first podcast episode for 2024. This episode was recorded on site in Emerald, Central Queensland and features a conversation between our CottonInfo Tech Lead for IPM Paul Grundy and QDAF Principal Research Scientist, Richard Sequeira. When Richard arrived in Central Queensland in 1996, the local cotton industry was in the grip of a Helicoverpa problem,...

Last year the Australian Cotton Disease Review was completed by the Centre for Crop Disease Management at Curtin University in WA and out of that … the Australian Cotton Disease Collaboration (ACDC) was been given the green light from the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) board.  CRDC’s Innovation Broker leading the project is Elsie Hudson and she joined the CottonInfo podcast to...

This podcast features a (virtual) round table discussion between CottonInfo’s IPM Tech Lead Paul Grundy and three CottonInfo REOs (Kieran O’Keeffe, Amanda Thomas & Janelle Montgomery) talking with Megan Woodward about the surprising trial results that formed the basis of the new guidelines - and how to best apply them. Other resources: Watch a new CottonInfo video on the research behind the gu...

The Weather And Networked Data (WAND) network of towers is a joint project between CRDC, GRDC and GoannaAg that launched late 2022. The network allows growers to see the latest weather readings from their local tower, and predicts whether a hazardous inversion is current or likely to occur in the next 2 hours. CottonInfo's Megan Woodward caught up with Hamish Clark, an early adopter of the WA...

Successfully planting cotton takes careful planning and good preparation. In this CottonInfo Podcast EXTRA, Cotton Seed Distributor's Chris Barry has a chat with grower John Cameron - a winner of the CSD Fast Start Award - about his approach to planting and some tips on achieving high establishment rates. This podcast recording has been developed alongside a CottonInfo YouTube video which can...

The new season is upon us and aphids are back on the radar and mites have been difficult to get on top of - so we thought there was no better time for an explainer of the season that was and gain an overview of what growers & consultants can do when it comes to aphid management in the months ahead. Dr Lisa Bird is a Senior Research Scientist with the NSW Department of Primary Industries and jo...

At the Australian Cotton Research Conference in early September, CottonInfo REO for Southern New South Wales, Kieran O'Keeffe gave a great presentation around the power of grower groups when it comes to the adoption of best practice. Kieran reported on some of the learnings of two pilot cotton grower groups that were formed in the 2021/22 season in Whitton and Coleambally - and Megan Woodward...

Megan Woodward caught up with CottonInfo Regional Extension Officer for the Macquarie Valley, and newly appointed Extension Technical Lead for Disease, Amanda Thomas, on site at the Australian Cotton Research Conference in Toowoomba at the start of September. Amanda's been heavily involved in the Cotton Disease Action Research Initiative over the past 12 months. It's a new project that&a...

Dr Murray Sharman is a Principal Plant Pathologist with the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, based in Brisbane. Murray reports that while no actual losses were reported due to Cotton Bunchy Top in cotton growing valley's last season - there was a much higher rate of occurrence of CBT, especially through northern NSW and on the Darling Downs in Queensland. In this podcast, M...

George Revell is a Principal Economist for AgEcon who specialises in investment impact assessments to support improved investment decision making. George is a regular contributor to CottonInfo, most recently developing two new Gross Margin risk analysis fact sheets specifically for cotton growers - one regarding nitrogen prices and NFUE, and the other regarding water use efficiency. In this episod...

In this episode we catch up with CottonInfo REO for St George, Dirranbandi & Border Rivers - Andrew McKay. Andrew has played a critical extension role to the CRDC-supported Bankless Irrigation Optimisation Project carried out by the University of Southern Queensland. As part of the research, Andrew's been involved in the water advanced sensing aspect and he's full of great tips &...

Dr Nicole McDonald is a Senior Research Officer with CQ University and she’s also the lead on a project called SHIFT, which is part of a CRDC funded action-research project officially known as ‘Delivering Best Practice for Management of Future Workforce Skills.’ In this episode we talk about the SHIFT Workforce Solutions Unconference taking place online on June 6th and 7th 2023 Unlike traditional...

In this episode we catch up with CottonInfo's Regional Extension Officer in Central Queensland, Kim Stevens. Kim offers an update on an extremely busy end of April/start of May in her district, including the latest on cotton trials in Monto, the recent Xtend Flex field days in Theodore and Springsure, and how the 22/23 season in shaping up locally.

Paul Grundy is CottonInfo’s Techical Lead for Integrated Pest Management and works for Qld DAF. In a season that started cold and soggy, Paul reckons that to ensure a decent 23/24 season the time is now to start prepping for a ‘Winter Clean-Up’ after a particularly challenging season on the pest management front. In this episode we talk 'breaking the green bridge' and the importance of d...

Jon Baird is CottonInfo’s Techical Lead for Nutrition and works for NSW DPI. He’s been on the road a lot during the first quarter of 2023, both across the cotton industry and with the grains industry. The topic everyone wants to chat to him about is nitrogen management – and that’s what we nabbed him to talk about, too. In a spare 10 minutes in his very busy schedule, Jon offered an overview of th...

In this episode we speak with Rene van der Sluijs - he's the Principal Consultant at Textile Technical Services and for the past decade he’s been CottonInfo’s Technical Lead for fibre quality. He's fresh off the road from presenting at the 2023 Marketing and Fibre Quality Workshops in Goondiwindi and Mungindi where there was excellent patronage - which suggests this is something growers...

After a hiatus, the CottonInfo 'Crop to Top' podcast is back for 2023! In this feature interview, CottonInfo's Megan Woodward speaks with Program Manager Warwick Waters - and they cover a lot of ground in just 20 minutes. Consider this your refresher course in all things CottonInfo! Listen now to gain some great insights into the power of the CottonInfo program and an overview of ke...

You might not have seen them – but there is a fair chance that they are on your farm. In this episode of Crop to Top, Brad Pfeffer talks with Professor Stuart Parsons about bats and how they fit into the bigger picture of farm biodiversity and pest management. This research, which involved cutting edge technology such as acoustic sensors and artificial intelligence, occurred as part of a project w...