The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is backing new research into the potential for irrigated grain crops ­ winter cereals, sorghum and maize ­ to make profitable use of water in cotton cropping systems.

Generally the profit from cotton remains better than irrigated grain crops, but high yielding grains grown with irrigation can match cotton in returns per megalitre of water used.

Water is now more limiting than land for irrigation farmers and returns per megalitre are driving cropping choices rather than returns per hectare.

The collaborative project ­ under the Cotton Catchment Communities CRC ­ links the NSW and Queensland Departments of Primary Industries (DPIs), CSIRO, Cotton Grower Services and Ag Central¹s Donald McMurrich.

Tracey Farrell, NSWDPI/Cotton CRC district agronomist at Narrabri, says the project was prompted by three major drivers:

• the fact that all cotton growers include grain in their crop rotations.
• research questions that need to focus on both the cotton and grain crops, rather than just on one of the commodities, and € recent trials of intensive, high-input systems of wheat that have produced high yields under irrigation on the farms around Wee Waa.

Ms Farrell said the high yield trials ­ of different varieties suitable for irrigation, with a new approach to crop establishment and more intensive nutrition management ­ had achieved wheat yields approaching 10 tonnes per hectare.

"One of the first steps in developing this project was to survey cotton and grain growers from both NSW and Queensland," Ms Farrell said.

"Growers perceived the highest priority for future research on high yielding grain crops in cotton rotations was agronomic packages tailored to appropriate varieties and regions.

"Growers also wanted information that considered the implications for both cotton and grain crops.

"In northern NSW, they also put a high priority on the need for more accurate irrigation scheduling advice for grain crops to achieve comparable returns per megalitre.

"In Queensland, growers surveyed by Cotton CRC program leader Graham Harris, indicated that soil health and area wide management of pests were important considerations as well as water management."

Ms Farrell said the first phase of the project also included a comprehensive economic analysis of a range of irrigated grain crops in cotton systems and a review of the literature and research done in other regions such as southern NSW.

The next stage of the project would focus on irrigated wheat in northern NSW and sorghum and maize on the Darling Downs next summer.