On this week's Web On Wednesday, the CSD extension Team speak with Peter Birch, Director and Consultant at B&W Rural, Moree. Peter discusses super single (1 in, 2 out) row configuration for dry land cotton. This configuration has been trialled in the Western sections of the Gwydir and Namoi valley's over the past two seasons and has returned some encouraging results.

Peter you have been working with a new concept in dryland cotton with what you have been terming super singles.  Can you just give us a run down of what is involved in this process?

Yes James, the super singles really came out of a trial that was not a deliberate trial that was done when a crop of Duncan’s out at Walgett in 1998 and in that trial one planter box was blocked up for a fair distance across the paddock. We didn’t do anything, we just looked after it as we would have for the double skip it was in.  What we found that was that one row yielded as well as the two rows that would have been there.  So that gave us some idea that the cotton was capable of doing it on that sort of configuration.  It really wasn’t until Bollgard and Roundup Ready came along that it became feasible. So last year out at “Avondale” we planted a field, its basically one row in and two rows out so each individual row has got access to all that moisture in the metre and a half either side of it to pick up the moisture.  Last year in what was reasonably tough year I suppose we were extremely pleased at the end the super singles kept on ticking on and ticking on.  It was finding moisture deeper and deeper and even when it got pretty tough there in February and March the plant really didn’t go into too much stress and we were with one probably 60mm shower of rain in January on a late planted crop it averaged about just under 3 bales per hectare, that’s total green hectares including the 10% refuge and it also averaged about $5.00 premium on the cotton quality.  So we were pretty encouraged by that.  This year with the extremely wet June/July a lot of people had country that didn’t get sown to wheat and so there was quite a lot of super singles sown around the district.  Just back one step, the reason we chose that configuration was for obviously when it is one in and two out it is a one third configuration so we are paying one third of the Bollgard licence and one third of the Roundup Ready licence and with the one in a two out it means that with a four row picker which is pretty much the standard in the industry, if you are harvesting up two rows you then skipping over another two metres before you have to harvest back again.  So you are affectively harvesting 2/3’s of the area so the maximum charge you are going to be charged by a contractor is 2/3’s of a full rate and then some people are doing deals on the fact that there is only two heads working etc.

Peter you just mentioned the first crop out at Avondale, this season a few more of your clients went with this idea of growing cotton on this configuration, can you just give us an update on how those crops have gone?

Yes there was probably nearly 18,000 hectares all up went into that configuration.  It went pretty much as you would expect.  We had two crops out West, one at “Avondale” and one at “Gorian” that had it extremely tough and then just hit solid heat wave for two months and that crop eventually it just couldn’t do it, it just wasn’t enough moisture and it just ended up at about 0.4 b/ac, about a bale to the hectare.  The crops at “Avondale” were later planted, they got no rain what so ever and so consequently they were very short, they did it extremely tough and were I think all the results aren’t in yet but it looks like it is probably going to go on an average of about 0.6 b/ac.  The interesting thing with that which was extremely tough all season is that there was still no discounts on the stuff that has been ginned so far, so we were extremely pleased with that.  Out at “Avondale” there was a trial conducted by CSIRO, Mike Bange and it came out that the super singles was the best configuration amongst them all.  Once we moved towards Moree where people got some of that rain we were very pleased with that.  The one direct comparison that we had unfortunately, was V-16 on the one in one out versus 289 on the super singles but the yield on the super singles 289 was 1.34 bales to the acre versus about 1.14 on the one in one out.  Once we got further east again particularly down that strip north of Moree where there was a lot of rain, they had a very good season there, they got all the storms, the super singles sort of topped out at that 1.14 bales to the acre where as the one in one out on a double skip was yielding up to 1.6 or 1.7, 1.8, so which is probably pretty much what we would expect.  So once you get enough rain obviously the super singles can only go to a certain yield level and physically you can’t put any more cotton on that one bush.  So those results as I say they were pretty much as expected and for most people who grew it they were pretty happy. 

Peter could you just give us a quick run down on the costs involved of this type of configuration?

On all the figures that we have done and we haven’t got them all in for this year but certainly on the figures that we have done and this assumes no heliothis sprays because we didn’t spray any of these crops for heliothis, probably one or two sucking insect sprays, a normal defoliation which was basically two defoliations this year on the dryland.  Taking into account the picking savings and the Bollgard Roundup Ready savings the costs we are working on we are growing these crops for about $550 - $600 a hectare so if you can grow dryland cotton for that sort of money obviously the Bollgard certainly takes a lot of the worry and the extra work out.  The quality issue is certainly very very important and I think that is one of the things that will make this configuration stay around for the long term because of the quality discounts are getting heavier and heavier and as I say even on some pretty tough conditions this year the quality discounts weren’t there, so we are very encouraged by that.  We are expecting people to grow these crops for certainly under $600.00 a hectare and that’s the gross margin costs not taking into account your fallow costs. 

Peter you have just had on two years of some fairly positive results.  What do you think the potential is for this sort of configuration in the future?

I think the way we are looking at it in this district is it suits obviously people who grow dryland cotton but there is a big swag of country out west of Moree where they really struggle to find a good rotation, a good summer rotation they realize for crown rot reasons, herbicide resistance reasons etc, that they need a certain amount of crop into summer crop and you talk to a lot of those farmers out around Walgett there assuming that they are probably going to need 10 – 15% of their farm into a summer crop every year, the sorghum has been reasonably unreliable out there because of the tough conditions.  The cotton just has a better ability to handle that really tough heat during December, January and February so I think what we are assuming it will take over some of the traditional dryland configurations but once you get out East people will still take that, they will have to decide whether they take the least risk option which is the super singles which if you get a good season will still peak out at 1.3 – 1.4 bales to the acre versus you can grow 1.82 and above if you get a really good season on single skip or double skip.  So people will just have to work or weigh that risk/reward up but certainly where we see it expanding is in the big western areas where the wheat growers know they need some sort of summer rotation.