Innovative research approaches that generate commercial outcomes for the cotton industry are the target of the new face of cotton biotechnology research – CottTech.

CottTech, a joint venture between existing leaders in cotton research including CSIRO, Cotton Seed Distributors Ltd (CSD) and the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC), will build upon the existing capacity of the award winning CSIRO cotton breeding team.

With new research and development investment cotton researchers in CottTech will undertake a suite of new cotton biotechnology projects to raise the level of cotton research in Australia.

“CottTech will target key issues which have been identified as priorities by the industry” says CRDC Executive Director Mr Bruce Finney.

“All the partners in CottTech have previously supported research and development in these areas, but CottTech will allow us to channel new investments into some highly innovative areas of plant breeding research,” Mr Finney says. 

CSIRO Plant Industry Chief, Dr Jeremy Burdon says that one of the features of much existing cotton research is it provides regular but step-by-step gains to cotton growers.

“CottTech will concentrate on the fundamental science and allow researchers to be more creative and original in their research,” Dr Burdon says.

“So, rather than delivering gains on top of an existing platform, research under CottTech seeks to raise the whole platform to a significantly higher level – one that will provide vastly improved outcomes for growers well into the future.”

CottTech aims to remove constraints on production and ultimately deliver beneficial traits faster through improved breeding techniques.