Ideal growing and harvest conditions paved the way for great yields as picking of Forbes’ first successful cotton crop got underway this week, opening up the doors for it to become a viable summer crop option for the district.
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A long and dry, warmer than average summer brought about by the lingering El Nino, coupled with early preparation and attention to detail saw local farmer Tony Hamilton pick a cotton crop that was returning above-average yields on Walla Wallah.
The actual yield result will not be known until the cotton is ginned.
Ecstatic with this result, Dr Hamilton was keen to see cotton become an established summer crop option in the Forbes district, similar to that in neighbouring Condobolin, and planned to plant more next season.
Dr Hamilton said the decision to grow cotton was driven by the need to explore options in a changing agricultural climate.
“With water buy backs and all the changes, we have to maximise our returns per megalitre of water,” he said.
“We can’t change the water availability, but with a better return we can afford more temporary water.
“If cotton does take off a bit more, and people can make the money off it, it will only help increase land and water values and bring more assurety to the valley,” he said.
“It will have benefits for the whole community, and provide work for contractors.”
He compared the cotton to maize grown in the adjoining paddock, which also yielded well.
Both crops required similar inputs in terms of fertiliser, chemicals and water, although the major cost for cotton was the licensing, picking and cartage, “but the return at the end of the day should be higher”, according to IMAG Consulting agronomist Cameron Corke.
Harvest was brought forward slightly owing to the predicted arrival of decent rainfall this weekend, rain which would adversely affect the opened bolls and severely discount the return.
The original plan budgeted for 10 bales per hectare, and set a target of 12. At this stage it looks like exceeding those expectations.
“The key is early preparation, no matter what summer crop you are going to grow,” Mr Corke said.
“Where we had prepped early for both the corn and the cotton, we got the good results.”
Mr Hamilton had forward-sold some of the cotton, which took a great deal of the risk out of dropping prices or lower yields. Bales are being transported to the Auscott cotton gin in Trangie.
He and Mr Corke had done investigations and preparations for a number of years before committing to trial the crop, their interest prompted by the noticed parallel between growing conditions in the cotton-growing areas of the MIA (Murrumbidgee district), and also in Condobolin.
“Our climate is similar (to the MIA), we have bore and river water here so we had reasonable water security, and we had already been growing maize so we had the experience with row cropping,” Dr Hamilton said.
“For the first time growing cotton, I don’t think we could have asked for anything better.
“I would like to thank everyone in the district for their carefulness in the use of summer sprays, we had no issues here,” he added.
Separate trials of four new bollgard III varieties were conducted on the Forbes property, however the huge yield, the lower input of chemicals and the chance to harvest early, prompted Mr Corke and Mr Hamilton to favour the early maturing, namely Sicot 714B3F.
“However we are seeing later varieties yield just as well so it may come down to which variety has the best turnout,” Mr Corke said.