I am speaking with Matt Mitchell.  Matt is the Senior Agronomist here at Lachlan Farms Limited at Hillston.  Matt could you just give us a bit of an overview on how the season went, this cotton growing season?

Yes, sure Craig.  It has been quite a hot summer which I think has been pretty consistent with all valleys.  We had an excellent start to the season, got a good establishment, but pretty much from Christmas onwards, well into February it was very warm.  So accumulated a lot of day degrees but probably the standout was the hot shock days, so well above average for hot shock days.  

So really the pressure was on as far as keeping water up to the crops and getting them irrigated on time in the schedules?

Yes, that was the key following Christmas was irrigation so trying to keep up with the demands of the crop.

We are now at picking.  Picking has been going for a while here, how has it been going so far?

Yes, better than expected so I guess everyone was concerned at what impact that heat would have during January, during that peak flower.  Boll numbers were telling us that we were similar to last year but I guess the next thing we were concerned about was boll weights but lie detectors have gone in and it is better than expected so we are pretty pleased.

So with the heat units above where the average would normally be, did picking start a little bit earlier than normal or it sort of came back to about average?

I would say some crops were earlier probably more dependent on the capabilities of the irrigation system but on average I think it has been as per normal.  I think people have taken advantage over the last couple of years of the extended summer and grown their crops out where in previous years I guess that hasn’t been possible.

And you are just about all Bollgard, Bollgard II – 100% Bollgard II Roundup Ready.  How did the Bollgard II hold up during the season?

Yes we were 100% Bollgard Roundup Ready.  We have a little bit of Flex® in.  The Bollgard® was excellent, zero sprays of heliothis, one spray for mirids.  

You mentioned that yields are looking pretty good, have you got any ginned results yet to sort of define how it actually is going?

Yes we have had a bit ginned.  We are ranging anywhere from 9 to above 10 bales.  So probably sitting on an average of 9.5 at the moment.  We are about 60% through picking, so we have some to go.

That’s a pretty good average.  What would be the long term average for the Lachlan Valley?

I think last year was probably our best average for the valley which was probably sitting between 8 – 8.5.  I would be thinking this year we could end up with a Valley average above 9.  We are seeing yields up to or above 12 bales and there are still some good crops.  Some of the later crops are some of the better crops to come off.  I think we will see some records broken again this year.

That sounds very good.  Now with ginning having started a little while ago the talk is that the turnouts are up.  The turnouts are actually looking pretty good.  What are your comments on that?

The turnouts have been an excellent surprise. We are seeing turnouts maybe bottoms of sort of 38 ½  for metre row.  Fifteen inch, 37 ½  but up to almost 41% average turnouts for some fields, which is excellent compared to what we have had in previous years so everyone is very encouraged about the yields they are getting in the seed cotton modules and then also getting that turnout at the gin, its excellent.

And looking at further south in the Murrumbidgee, the Hay area have you sort of heard of how things are going there so far?

Just second hand that the picking hasn’t progressed too far yet but all the early signs are that its very encouraging so they are also having a very good season.

And looking at next season Matt, here in the Lachlan Valley what’s the scenario as far as water and those sort of issues?

I guess we ended up with 19% river allocation last year and the dam was in a pretty poor state coming into the winter.  This year the dam is probably sitting at high 20% and I guess if we get some very good inflows we could be set up for a better part of our river allocation this year.  The bore water, its still up in the air. The water sharing plan may come in on that ground water situation there so who knows.  But I guess more encouraging than previous years.

Nice sunny day here today Matt so I just hope that it continues until you get picking finished and then it can start raining for winter cereal crops.

Yes that would be great.  We had one rain event on Friday and that sort of pulled things up for a few days but we are back into it now so I think most people will start to wind up in the Hillston area over the next 7 – 10 days.

Thanks very much Matt.

Thanks Craig.