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Aussie farmers to plant record breaking cotton crop
11 Aug '11
2 min read
The Australian Cotton industry is gearing up for a record breaking crop with more than 583,000 hectares expected to be planted with cotton for the 2011-12 season, making it the largest cotton crop ever planted in this country.
Cotton Australia CEO Adam Kay says with good water availability and a favourable seasonal outlook, the cotton crop will be around 80,000ha larger than the previous record set by this year's crop.
The biggest increase has been in the rapid expansion of the cotton industry into southern NSW.
“The 2011-12 season will see cotton growing within a few hours drive from Melbourne, something which was previously unthinkable. Continual advances in our growing technology means not only will this be the biggest Australia cotton crop ever, it will also have one of the lowest environmental footprints.”
“In the last few years, the Australian Cotton industry has slashed our chemical use by around 90% and we are more water efficient than ever, these are a couple of very good reasons why more farmers are now making cotton their choice of crop.”
The Cotton Australia CEO said growing two record crops back to back will be a challenge for the industry, particularly in finding and retaining enough people to work in cotton.
General Manager for Cotton Seed Distributors, Steve Ainsworth says his company has been at full production meeting the strong demand for planting seed orders.
“It's down south that has seen the strongest interest for the next season, we'd estimate that around a third of all our seeds will go in the ground south of Warren in NSW.”
“That expanded interest in dryland cotton is very encouraging, but a planting rain sometime soon would be very welcome,” Mr Ainsworth said.
The planting window for cotton opens in late September with most of the crop in the ground by the end of November.
Cotton Australia CEO Adam Kay says with good water availability and a favourable seasonal outlook, the cotton crop will be around 80,000ha larger than the previous record set by this year's crop.
The biggest increase has been in the rapid expansion of the cotton industry into southern NSW.
“The 2011-12 season will see cotton growing within a few hours drive from Melbourne, something which was previously unthinkable. Continual advances in our growing technology means not only will this be the biggest Australia cotton crop ever, it will also have one of the lowest environmental footprints.”
“In the last few years, the Australian Cotton industry has slashed our chemical use by around 90% and we are more water efficient than ever, these are a couple of very good reasons why more farmers are now making cotton their choice of crop.”
The Cotton Australia CEO said growing two record crops back to back will be a challenge for the industry, particularly in finding and retaining enough people to work in cotton.
General Manager for Cotton Seed Distributors, Steve Ainsworth says his company has been at full production meeting the strong demand for planting seed orders.
“It's down south that has seen the strongest interest for the next season, we'd estimate that around a third of all our seeds will go in the ground south of Warren in NSW.”
“That expanded interest in dryland cotton is very encouraging, but a planting rain sometime soon would be very welcome,” Mr Ainsworth said.
The planting window for cotton opens in late September with most of the crop in the ground by the end of November.
Cotton Australia
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