Peter Bunce, Australian Classing Services, reports on the classing results so far this season.

Peter, have you got any comments on the overall fibre quality that you have seen coming through this year?

Overall it has been a very good year. Quality wise all parameters have been pretty good but it is not quite as rosy as what every ones cranked it up to be. I will go through each fibre property individually but we have been noticing there has been a bit of 35 staple coming through which tends to sour everything a little bit, but overall everything has been very good.

If we go through some of those individual things first, firstly grades, in general what have the grades been like?

The grades have been fantastic. Its’ been a great year to be a cotton classer. Colour wise we have sort of seen predominantly 21 colours, probably above 80% probably around 90% is 21 colour and higher which is a premium colour and leaf has also been extremely good, its been very clean. I think that we are running at 70, just above 70% 21-2’s and higher at this stage. I should note that we are only about 25% of the way through our classing so it’s still only an indication at this stage but everything is looking pretty good.

If the grades did continue to go that way have you ever seen that sort of degree of good quality grades before?

Not grade wise no. Not in my years and I have been talking to a lot of other people and they have never seen grades this good ever.

That reflects on an almost perfect picking season through most of the areas. Moving on to other parameters, the one that always rears its head a little bit or certainly has in previous seasons is micronaire. Would you like to make some comments on micronaire?

Yes, micronaire is probably one of the most impressed this year, its been a bit of an issue the last couple of years so this year, the average for micronaire has really come down across all varieties and all valleys. We are sort of seeing a bulk – probably 66% in that 3.8 to 4.5 category which is really promising and then we are sort of running just below 30% in that 4.6 – 4.9. We are seeing very less than 1% - less than .5% probably above the G5 and G6 category so it is really impressive.

Have you seen any low micronaire?

Bits and pieces, just little bits of dryland coming in – it is very isolated incidence and that’s purely environmental conditions.

The other thing that has becoming more of an interest to growers as we move through into potentially new base grades in coming seasons has been fibre length, so any comments on those?

Length has probably been the most concerning fibre property. It started off pretty good, we are sort of seeing predominantly 36, 37 staple. We have just noticed as the season rolls on there has been the sort of incidence of 35 staples increasing. I think we are sort of upwards around about that 15%, like sort of between and it is increasing at the start of the season it was roundabout the 10%. So its not a good trend, it is not attracting huge discounts or anything out there are this stage but it something to be a little bit concerned about or we will just see. We haven’t seen a hell of a lot of cotton from Southern cotton growing regions yet so we will just sort of see what happens there. 

And the other one that is generally OK but has there been any problems with strength?

Strength has been fine. You know averaging about between 30 and 31 so similar to last year strength has been really good. Not an issue at all, I think we have seen very little below 28 grams per tex. 

And, as you mentioned before, it is still relatively early days as far as ginning goes, some of the samples you have been through and that is particularly the case for some of the Southern areas that have only really just started but have you seen any sort of regional differences or is it all fairly consistent?

It is reasonably consistent, we do see bits of regional differences. It tends to be North, some of the northern valleys, and I don’t want to name any particular valleys but some tend to have a bit average lower staple, tend to be higher percentage 35 staple. The sort of central valleys tend to be a little improved and I think that’s purely environmental. 

And, that split East/West again its still pretty early to tell but you haven’t noticed too much difference between the Western cottons and the Eastern cottons?

No it has been pretty consistent this year across East and West. 

And, getting down to differences in technology, this is the first year we have had a fairly large area of Bollgard® II, in fact in some valleys its as high as 90%, but, so it might be difficult to make comparisons in those Valleys but have you got any general comments from what you have seen between Bollgard and conventional?

It has been hard to notice any trends, we have only just started looking at it. The reason being is because we don’t want to make any assumptions until we have seen a decent amount of volume through. We are just starting to look at it now. Probably the only trend we are seeing is that the Bollgard®, the same family of the Bollgard® varieties tend to be a bit longer staple than the conventionals and they tend to be a little bit higher micronaire and there are still not issues with the micronaire its just the Bollgard® varieties tend to be a higher proportion in the 4.6 to 4.9 category than the conventional varieties but otherwise its pretty comparable. 

And you mentioned before you have done a little bit of dryland quality or some of the dryland classing, what have you noticed there?

Dryland has been very variable. Even within a valley just the different areas within the valleys have just, you know one guy has got low micronaire and short staple and the next guy has got some beautiful cotton with premium micronaire and premium staple. Its just too hard to generalise on dryland at this stage but it has just been very patchy. But overall it has been reasonably good. 

I guess one word would sum it up as being variable?

Variable is a good word, yes.

Further Information:
Robert Eveleigh