Cotton Seed Distributors article
A video version is available at www.csd.net.au/

On this weeks Web on Wednesday Adam Kay and James Quinn talk with Kim Morrison and Andrew Parkes about Sicala 350B.

Can you tell us how you found the fibre of the Sicala 350B?

We have been really impressed with the fibre length, the strength and the mirconaire having been in a tight range.  It has been excellent and it is going to fit somewhere in between the upland cotton we normally produce and Pima.  What we are trying to place and trying to develop at Macquarie is a premium for that.  We are trying to go to spinner’s we know are going to be prepared to pay more, than the yield penalty that is incurred in growing it so that we can encourage a bit more production.

And so how are you going as far as developing the market with the spinners?

We have had a little bit over the last two years, this year there is a little more volume.  We are trying to send it out to the spinners in a range of different countries.  Give them a little bit to wet their appetite and really try to develop their interest so that we can grow the market.  We have had very good interest from the spinners who use a lot of Pima.  They are seeing the opportunity that, where Pima prices are a $1.35/$1.40 a pound, that they can use some of this stuff to actually reduce the cost of their blend and then still sell the end product or the yarn as Pima, using this cotton we are supplying.

So what sort of base fibre parameters do we need to get and what sort of increase premium do you think we may be able to achieve?

The critical thing that we are hearing from these guys is that the strength has to be 34 and the staple length has to be 39+.  So we are seeing with this crop, this year, say 40 and 41 staple, we are seeing that 34 strength, which is great and the mirconaire is nice and tight, it is in that 3.8-4.5 range.  The colour has been excellent, depending on the picking conditions and ginning.  It tends to be a little leafier through the gin, probably because of the long staple, but we don’t think that it will necessarily going to be much of a detriment to it when we market it.

So Kim where do we go from here with Sicala 350B?

I think that the marketing of it is, we are now going out to see where we can get this premium. We think that premium can be built around, having a BMP, a traceable product - something that we can build a good story around, targeted at long staple users, so no longer the upland spinners that we have been used to targeting but going to the guys who are using Pima and long staple, trying to develop that market segment that is going to pay the premium.  So anyone who is interested in growing it, certainly come and talk to us, talk to us at Macquarie about how to go about achieving that sort of premium.

Andrew, you tried one of the newer varieties Sicala 350B in a couple of fields this year, can you tell me how you thought it went from an agronomic prospective?

It is a different type of plant, particularly to the newer varieties these days, the 71B and 71BR types.  It is very much an erect sort of strong growing plant, we struggled a little bit with just how to handle it agronomically and we have tried to do a few different things I suppose to get an awareness of what agronomic needs it has.  The results that have come out of that is we need to try and make it a bit more compact than perhaps it has allowed to just develop on its own.  To help with defoliation issues and the canopy inside that crop with Boll rot etc.  It has been a little bit different for us to handle but nothing out of the ordinary, we had gotten through the season pretty well with it.

Andrew, we know with 350B is just not a higher yielding variety than some of the others we have to offer, what would you say when comparing it other field around it this year, how did it go?

The fields close to it this year are somewhere between 10-15% in front as far as yield goes.  

In regards to the marketing of it this year were you able to extract anything more in regards to the excellent length it does have?

Yes, we have and that is still on going.  We have been able to sell some of the higher leaf types that we have had come through for a very handy premium and we still have the better of those qualities to sell.  It is something that starting to create a lot of interest, not just here, but overseas.  A lot of the mills now apparently are starting to talk about this product and are very keen to continue to work it.  They are trying to blend things with Pima and with the current price, for that you can understand why.  It has gone extremely well in that regard, I am quite confident that we will make up the difference in the yield with the premiums on the quality.

Andrew, in the future, could you see yourself growing some more of these higher quality cottons?