Allen Williment, “Girrahween” Theodore and Dawson Callide Consultant Simon Struss discuss the picking of the 2005/06 crop which commenced last week and provide a seasonal summary.

Allen, we are standing here in one of your paddocks that you have started picking. Time wise, how are you running this year with picking?

John, we would have to be two weeks earlier than we have ever been before. The crop just loaded up and never grew much past 18 nodes and just finished off.

Mid February then, the field was planted on 15th September so it’s been a fairly quick crop.

Yes it has been a quick crop.

Earlier on, you mentioned water logging was a bit of a hassle and that’s had some impact on the crop?

Waterlogging has been a big problem and a lot of that has been part of our own making. We lasered the whole farm last year and we had a lot of problems getting water infiltration so we put a shallower furrow in this year and consequently we topped a lot of our beds with water and paid the consequences.

Insect wise, what has it been like. Mirids been much of a hassle and what about whitefly?

Two mirid sprays which has been not too bad and whitefly, we just did parameters of the field and where the hot spots were we did right into them. It has been good. We used 10 litres of product on there and really it has been cheap for whitefly.

As far as defoliation goes and just picking, how is it going, your defoliation went well?

Defoliation has been good. Two applications, leaves dropped well, it has been a textbook defoliation.

And it is picking OK?

Yes it is picking OK. We had a bit of rain. We are dropping some on the ground but yes, it is picking OK. I don’t know whether the yields are terribly impressive but they are not too bad either.

Simon, we are here on the 16th February. How are things running in the Dawson Calide as far as defoliation and picking?

Certainly the quickest season we have ever ever had I think John. We have now got pickers going in the paddock with I would say by the end of this weekend, weather permitting probably 50% of the area will be defoliated and that is certainly unprecedented in this history here.

And it’s been pretty favourable conditions for leaf dropping?

Yes, so far we have had very very favourable conditions, it has been very hot of course and the leaves have been blowing off very quickly. Coming back in after 5 days for the second one and the first couple of farms that are picking now we were in there about a week after that second defoliation which is as best you could ever hope for.

The statistics are showing it’s certainly been the hottest summer in the Theodore area for 50 years. What has it felt like out in the paddock?

I would attest to that. It has certainly been the hottest summer since white man has been hanging thermometers on walls and I think that has certainly had an effect on the cotton the way it has grown and it’s certainly put the irrigation strategies or irrigation systems under a lot of stress unfortunately.

What sort of systems, what irrigation intervals and type of thing have a lot of the fields been worked on in the peak heat?

Well, irrigated fields were coming back in almost 7 days and that was on pretty good country. Anything on lighter textured soils they were back to four and five and believe me they actually needed that water at that point in time and it just went on for week after week.

And there was very little rainfall from mid December on to help out?

Yes, we had good early season rain. We thought that this is going to be a wet season but all of a sudden it just shut up shop and yes, we haven’t been able to rely on the heavens at all for the later part of the season, that’s when the whips are cracking and its all just irrigation and just keep on going.

And as far as nitrogen use strategies go, has there been much of a change would you say over the last season or two?

Certainly there has been a change John. There has been more nitrogen, well the acknowledgement that more is required and more has got on. Where we fell in a bit of a hole this year, we had some of that early season rain and thank God we did because at least we got a flow in the river and got an allocation but we lost more through de-nitrofication in that early stage than I think we appreciated. Although we tried to amend that and rectify it and get more on I think in some instances it was insufficient and possibly too late and that certainly has had a restraining affect on the plants fruiting ability.

Moving to insects. Mirids were reasonably severe early/mid season?

Yes, we had quite a few around but there, I daresay, their a non issue but I mean that they are pretty easy to detect and they are easy to take out so they did require treatment on all farms and two or three times. But they didn’t really have any lasting affect.

And the whitefly were much more severe this year than the last couple of years?

Yes, we have always sort of relied on some natural parasitism giving us a hand with the whitefly and this year they started to build up very slow numbers around that after Christmas period and we thought the same thing might apply this year but unfortunately whether the heat has been detrimental on the parasitoids but here again whitefly cranked up to the extent where there would be very few farms or fields that didn’t require some sort of treatment, be it an IGR or Pegasus at some point in time and we were getting honeydew.

And some of the other secondary pests, was there a hint of Vege bug or mites about at all?

Look, we had mites and they were ubiquitous, but they never exploded, you saw low numbers, you saw low numbers of thrips late in the season. We certainly saw thrips very early season to which we had to take out in some instances. But GVB really, I have seen about 3 all season. We have been very lucky there.

And just a comment on PIX this season versus last season. A bit of use?

Yes, most certainly John that’s another one of those hard issues to handle when it comes to some of these new varieties. We thought last year that some of them were, they had a very low response they didn’t need much PIX or in fact PIX would have been detrimental but in actual fact, the way those plants grew in those particular varieties they did need PIX and I think in hindsight, we probably could have picked some crops a little earlier although here again, I don’t know that it has had a major bearing on the actual performance of those particular crops I am talking about but certainly yes, PIX was once again used quite extensively.

One fact that has helped to some extent is it has been such a dry finish that bollrot has been pretty insignificant?

Yes, that’s very much so John. We were looking at one stage there where we had a pretty fair canopy on some of these crops that have been watered well and fertilised well but you know bollrot could have been horrific but we have largely avoided that. So, it hasn’t been a season of total negatives and when we got the early rain that gave us an allocation. We didn’t get rain at the end and let’s hope we can get some of this crop off before we do get any serious rain.

And because of the way the season has gone. Have you got any fibre quality concerns at all, length or micronaire or anything?

Yes, that’s one of the ones that I have got. Most certainly John, I think, if ever there is going to be a high micronaire year. We have just had it. Fortunately most of the varieties we have got out there don’t pre-dispose themselves largely to it. Length is the one we are very much concerned about at the moment. It is just one of those seasons where even if we could do all we could, we still may be prone to having length problems.

Further Information: John Marshall