Cotton growers are natural resource managers as well as farm managers. They are required to bring together a range of technologies and skills to find the right balance between a healthy environment and high-yielding, high quality cotton crops. The Australian cotton industry is at the forefront of sustainable practices, ensuring a positive future for the industry and the natural systems that support it.
The Best Management Practices (BMP) program underpins the industry’s commitment to environmental best practice, while at the same time acknowledging that farmers are business people who need to find a balance between productivity and sustainability. Every farm is different and so the techniques suited to one farm with a particular set of conditions an dsoil types, may not be as effective on the property next door. Cotton growers are clever environmental and farm managers who choose the best production methods for their farming system.
The following provides a summary of just some of the innovative technologies and farming techniques used on modern Australian cotton farms.
Water Use Efficiency
- Tail water recycling systems
- Drip irrigation
- Overhead/lateral-move irrigators and pivots
- Electo-magnetic surveys to detect leaks in storages and channels
- Reducing evaporation by shortening row lengths
- Minimum tillage
- Positioning dams closer to cotton fields
- Deeper water storages with smaller surface areas to reduce evaporation
- Avoiding water storage on farm by only purchasing water as it is needed
- Smaller water storage cells to reduce evaporation
- Not putting water directly into dry storages which soak up water
- Infield monitoring using probes to detect soil moisture levels
- Irrigation scheduling to ensure irrigation is only done as and when it is needed
- Creating a ‘water budget’ to monitor water use
- Lining storages and channels with clay or non-porous materials to avoid seepage
- Bankless channel irrigation
- Siphonless channels
- Covering water storages
- Mulching and stubble retention
- Permanent wheel beds to reduce soil compaction and increase water infiltration
- Avoiding water logging and over-watering
- Precision flood irrigation
- Laser leveling fields to avoid water logging
- Using cotton varieties such as Bollgard II® which have a shorter season and therefore require less water
- Software packages such as HydroLOGIC (www.csiro.au/hydrologic) and Water Track (www.watertrack.com.au)
- Doubling the size of siphons
- Deeper head ditches
Biodiversity
- Retention of native vegetation to provide buffer zones, harbor beneficial insects and nature’s pest controllers (birds and bats), reduce soil erosion and help keep waterways healthy (20-30% of cotton farms are covered in native vegetation)
- Feral pest control programs to protect native plants and animals
- Leaving standing and fallen dead timber, rocks and understorey shrubs as these are habitats for native plants and animals
- Replanting native species to create nature corridors
- Sowing small areas of local native grasses as a nursery for seed collection so that native grasses can be restored on other areas of the farm
- Flora and fauna monitoring – recording animal tracks, diggings, footprints, scat, chewed bark, nests, spider webs and bird calls
- On-farm water storages used as feeding and breeding grounds for birds
Pest Management
- Integrated Pest Management (IPM) systems - a combination of soft, targeted chemicals, biotechnology, natural control methods like pupae busting, trap and refuge crops and the introduction of predator insects such as spiders, ants and lady beetles
- Massive reductions in synthetic and broad spectrum pesticides
- Weather monitoring equipment, used to determine ideal conditions for chemical applications and chemicals only applied in ideal weather conditions
- Cotton crops regularly checked for pests – all bugs counted and categorised to allow precision pesticide applications using GPS technology
- Use of bug-specific sprays and softer chemicals
- Naturally occurring treatments like skim milk powder, bacteria and viruses used to control pests
Soil Health
- Stubble retention to improve soil health and retain moisture and nutrients
- Cotton grown in rotation with other crops such as wheat, chickpeas and sunflowers to improve and retain soil nutrients
- No till farming where the soil is left undisturbed and weeds are controlled with herbicides rather than cultivations – this allows organic matter to build up in the soil and increases its moisture holding capacity
- Cotton crops sewn directly into the stubble from previous crops
- Paddocks left to rest or remain “fallow” allowing a natural build up of nutrients in the soil
- Use of organic fertilisers such as chicken and feed-lot manures
- Use of Global Positioning Systems (GPA) for yield mapping, identifying weed hot spots and crop stress and soil nutrition data
Climate Change
- Use of minimum and no-till farming to avoid cultivating soils and releasing greenhouse gasses
- Use of organic fertilisers such as chicken and feed-lot manures to reduce the need for nitrogen fertilisers
- Use of legume crops such as vetch to provide nitrogen for subsequent crops
