The 2005/06 cotton harvest is well advanced in most Australian growing regions. In this weeks Web on Wednesday we hear from Rick Fitzgerald from Australian Cotton Classing in Moree to give us a hint on what some of the fibre quality issues are going to be for this season. We also get picking updates from myself, from the Border Rivers region and from Rob Eveleigh talks about the Namoi and some of the southern growing areas.

Rick Fitzgerald

Rick, could you give us a run down on where you are receiving cotton from at the moment and how many bales you’ve classed so far?

We’ve classed in the vicinity of 30,000 bales at this point in time, which is pretty good for the start of the season. The cotton we’re seeing is coming from the St George area, the Macintyre Valley and a tiny bit from the Gwydir Valley at the moment.

Can you just give an indication of what you’ve seen quality-wise so far?

Quality from a classing prospective has been pretty good, probably just a tad down on last year. Last year we received a lot of 11 grade cotton coming through but this year it’s tending to be more of the 21 grade and in isolated patches the trash tends to be a little fraction higher than last year. From what I’ve heard, in some of the rain affected cotton, the trash is a grade up on last year. The Micronaire is tending to be higher this year. We’re finding it in the high G5 range and it’s entering into the G6 range, that’s probably about a 4.9 to 5.2.

What percentage would you say (roughly) would be in that higher Micronaire G6 range?

G6 range, probably very small; 10% if that. It’s not a huge range but maybe 10 to 15%.

You mentioned too that you’re finding a bit more trash in the sample. A lot of growers and consultants have been discussing the fact that they are having trouble defoliating this year’s crop. Do you think that’s an impact at all in the trash sample?

We’re seeing a slight increase in trash this year but nothing that I’d be concerned about, mainly in the 2 leaf to 3 leaf range.

Would you think that’s more of an impact from the rain that we’ve had in some parts during this year?

Yes I believe that’s correct.

In regards to fibre length how are we going there?

Good, because the bulk of the cotton we’ve tested is coming in the inch to an eighth range, which is a 36 staple and we have a small percentage in the 35 (32nds of inch). We haven’t seen any Dryland cotton yet but from what we’re seeing up North the staple is looking to be holding up pretty well.

Could you just give us a quick run down on what you’re seeing in regards to the strength of this year’s cotton and maybe uniformity as well?

The strength this year is very similar to last year, in excess of 30 grams per tex and what we’re seeing with uniformity is very good; in excess of 82, which is very good for this year. If things keep up the way we’re going it should be a very good crop.

David Kelly

This year in the Border Rivers region most people are saying that it’s been a particularly unforgiving year, and that’s mainly been due to the record number of hot days that were experienced in most areas; especially throughout the Christmas period and into January.

What this has done is exacerbate any problems that people may have had with irrigation timing, fields that are difficult to irrigate and hard setting soil types. The general comment has been that situations where yield loss has occurred for any of those reasons; its really been a lot worse this year than it would be in most years.

Another big factor year has been the slowness in time to get those last few bolls to open up at the top of the crop. A lot of people noticed that 60% of the crop opened up okay and then it’s taken a long time to get that last 20% or 30% of bolls to open up.

It probably comes down to the fact that much of the growing season was very hot, the crop was very ‘stop/ start’ and hence the maturity is very mixed on some of those later bolls. The upshot of that has been that many people have had to put three applications of boll opener on and many have come to the conclusion that there’s a lot of bolls on some of these crops that are just never going to open so they’re ending up picking crops that have still got a proportion of green bolls on them.

In terms of how the different areas are going; the Macintyre (as of the end of the second week in April) has probably 25% of picking done, there’s a lot of farms that are well progressed and there’s a lot of farms who haven’t started. Not a lot of ginning or classing results from this area because but generally yields have been fairly encouraging. Problem free crops (ones where water and soil type wasn’t an issue) are yielding in the high threes to mid fours yield range (bales/ acre).

Some of the quality issues that are coming back from the small amount that has been classed indicate there’s been some high Micronaire and a little bit of short staple. In saying that, there are some farms that have got a lot of cotton classed and ginned and they haven’t had any problems and these other farms that have a lot of quality problems, so it really is a mixed bag and again it comes back to this season being particularly unforgiving.

In the St George/Diranbandi area (as of the end of the second week in April) approximately 75% has been picked and most will be completed by the end of the week after Easter. Similar sort of situation with yields (as Macintyre), there’s been some good reports. M

ost people are talking about high threes to mid (and the occasional) high fours (bales/ acre). Classing again has been a mixed bag and again some farms have come through scot free and other farms have had some serious problems, mainly micronaire. The issue I was talking about before with the excessive heat obviously becomes more of an issue the further west you head. There were some fairly horrific periods of hot temperatures in that St George/Diranbandi area this year.

In closing, St George/Diranbandi will probably be finished picking by the last week of April and the Macintyre area probably the second week of May. In a nutshell, it’s been a very tough year but the results are generally encouraging, although as I said it’s been very unforgiving.

Robert Eveleigh

Rob, how is picking progressing in the Namoi Valley?

At this stage we’re probably about 30-40% through picking. Still a lot of delays with growers waiting for crops to open. There are still quite a lot of green bolls on many of the crops that cycled again and so we’re seeing crops that finished early, they’re basically all picked now and growers are progressively picking fields as they’re ready.

And the Upper Namoi?

The Upper Namoi started picking a few crops at much the same time as the Lower Namoi this season and is really not too far behind at this stage. I’d expect they’re probably about 20% through picking, particularly around the Boggabri area but there are quite a few late crops there and they’re really not going to be finished until into May.

Any comments of quality?

Early days yet on quality but I guess the same trends that happened in the crops further north appear to be happening here in that the quality all seems fine except the Micronaire tends to be at the higher end of the range and we’re certainly seeing a few crops where the Micronaire is above five, but generally speaking it’s sitting in that range 4.6 to 5.0.

And Dryland?

Dryland crops are a mixed bag. Some of the early Dryland crops have been picked. The yields from those have been quite disappointing, yields down as low as ½ a bale per acre and now we’re starting to see some of the later crops or the crops that had a little bit more rain being picked and the yields are now up around that bale per acre. I think some of the very late crops that benefited from rain should yield considerably better than that and we should see a few crops in that 1.5 bale per acre range but they’ll still be a little while yet before they’re ready to pick.

Any comments on crops further South?

I’ve spoken to Craig McDonald, they’re probably around that 35 to 40% picked down south in the Macquarie and the crops generally appear to be yielding quite well but certainly not the highs of previous years but good average yields. Craig expects the crops to have an average yield in that Macquarie region of somewhere around 9 bales per hectare average, which is pretty good.

Hillston?

Further south, picking is only just starting and around Hillston a few of the early crops that have come off are very encouraging and growers are very happy with those yields. They’re looking forward to some pretty good yields so far but really only a few percent of the crops have been picked at this stage.

And way out West in Bourke?

Bourke is pretty well finished picking. The yields out there have been disappointing as one would expect where water has been very short. I guess most growers have been short of water. The crops that did receive extra watering have gone pretty well but certainly challenged by the lack of water.

Further Information:
Robert Eveleigh, David Kelly