Cotton Australia’s Simone Cameron led a panel discussion into cotton production in northern Australia at last month’s Australian Cotton Conference. Participants included: Sharna Holman, QDPI; Jack Daniel, Northern Australia Crop Research Alliance; Ben Turner, Bayer; Luke McKay, KAI Kununurra; and Brett Corish, NT cotton grower. Photo: Liz Wells

BAYER has applied to the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to extend the planting window for most northern Australia cotton valleys from eight to 12 weeks.

It is hoped the longer window will enable growers to plant their planned hectares during prolonged wet seasons and to give time for replanting.

Apart from the Douglas Daly and Katherine region in the Northern Territory and Mareeba-Dimbulah west of Cairns in Far North Queensland, all regions have opted into the program.

These changes will be included in a new Resistance Management Plan, a system that aims to maintain the qualities of Bollgard 3 which makes it resistant to Helicoverpa.

Currently, northern Australia has a single RMP with one planting window.

As part of the revised RMP, growers in participating areas will be required to grow additional refuge area.

This requirement will increase refuge plantings from 7 percent to 7.5pc for unsprayed cotton, or 2.5pc to 3.75pc of pigeon pea.

Bayer territory business manager for northern Australia, Ben Turner, said following a “protracted wet season” growers in the Ord region of Western Australia led a request to extend the planting window.

“The growers in Kununurra in the Ord Valley…hadn’t managed to get in what they had hoped to get in at the beginning of the season because they hadn’t had the days available,” Mr Turner said.

“They were really the instigators of the request this year.”

He said the growers hoped to have the new window in place by next season to coincide with the anticipated opening of the Ord’s gin.

He said a trial permit has been accepted and Bayer expected the application “to be approved by the middle of October”, unless the APVMA opts to review the data included in the document.

Northern Australia cotton valleys. Photo: Bayer

Industry consulted

Mr Turner said after discussions with Ord growers, all other northern growers, grower associations, and agronomists were consulted about the proposed changes.

“Obviously, if you’re going to go to the lengths of doing the work and putting your submission in for a change, I canvassed the growers from across all the other regions or the valleys of northern Australia.”

Mr Turner said most valleys were in favour of the change; however, the Douglas Daly-Katherine and Mareeba-Dimbulah felt the extended window and additional refuge requirements wouldn’t suit their systems.

He said, for example, Mareeba-Dimbulah was located in higher altitudes with colder temperatures, which reduced the length of its season.

“Extending the planting window to 12 weeks doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because they really need to plant in December to capture all the relevant climate that they need.”

Mr Turner said Bayer worked with the industry to make these changes and wouldn’t “force” additional requirements on growing regions.

“The primary goal with it is to ensure that we don’t ruin the technology for the entire industry, because what happens in northern Australia cascades down to the other 500,000 hectares.”

Mr Turner said the move was part of a process which was “starting to separate out the resistance management plan by region”.

He said Bayer was also working on finding each valley’s ideal six-week timeframe where cotton can’t be grown in different parts of the year.

Mr Turner said while the RMP was not “set in stone”, the maturity of research and knowledge of southern cotton-growing regions has meant little major changes have been made to the system in recent years.

One example was changes made in Central Qld valleys to accommodate the “grow-on model” being used by growers to make use of the region’s climate and increase yields.

Cotton Australia backs move

The application has the support of the Cotton Australia Transgenic Insecticide Management Strategy (TIMS) committee.

Cotton Australia’s senior policy manager northern Australia, Simone Cameron, said the industry was “still in the developing phase” and this means developing best practice methods across the north, essentially for each valley.

She said the latest planting window for many regions “was an example of where a longer window would have been helpful”.

“Cotton is an establishing industry and there are lots of things that we need to piece together,” Ms Cameron said.

“The [RMP] is one of those things that we need to piece together and piece it together well.

“The technology enables us to be able to grow the cotton and grow it efficiently and obtain reasonable yields as well.

“If we don’t look after that technology…we’ll end up in a situation where we won’t be able to grow cotton because the technology that has been enabling us to manage a certain pest won’t be there.”

Ms Cameron also praised growers and their dedication to ensuring Bt cotton maintained its resistance traits.

“Growers in Australia need to be commended on their achievements for working with industry and making sure that we have the technology in the plant that enables them to grow productive yields.”

She also highlighted recent data raised at this month’s Australian Cotton Conference that demonstrated that the nation was succeeding in its aim to maintain the technology’s resistance levels.

“We pride ourselves in Australia on having 100pc resistance-management green light compared to other countries in the world that grow cotton.”

University of Arizona Regents Professor Bruce Tabashnik gave an update on global patterns of resistance to Bt crops.

He gave Australia a “green light” for no “early warning” signs or “practical resistance”.

However, parts of northern and southern America, India and Africa showed instances of “practical resistance”.