Cotton a hit in Vic

There is a wide variation in climate in the mainland's smallest State and the north-western town of Swan Hill has a lot more in common climate-wise with the Riverina, where cotton is grown successfully, than the southern coast.

With this in mind, Michael Neville, the agricultural operations manager for Kilter Rural - the company which operates an aggregation of properties between Swan Hill and Lake Boga - is confident the 110 hectare crop will be a goer.

"We're very similar in climate to Moulamein and Hay and we're actually a little further north and warmer than Berrigan and they are growing cotton successfully in those places," Mr Neville said.

"When you think about, its strange to assume that a little arbitrary squiggle on the map like the Murray River is going to make any real difference to viability.

"We've done our research and with cotton it's all about getting the sunlight and water on the crop and we've got that in abundance here."

Mr Neville said he was optimistic cotton would have a good fit within the rotation.

"In terms of our summer crops here it will fit in with the planting schedule nicely, just after tomatoes and before the maize."

He said innovations in breeding meant cotton had marched steadily southward from its northern NSW heartland.

"Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD) have varieties that grow well through the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee regions and they will be suited climatically to Swan Hill."

He said infrastructure and equipment was still an issue being an isolated producer.

"It's no different to growing any new crop in an area.

"We planted the crop ourselves with a precision planter and we'll get a cotton picker in from further north."

At present, he said the nearest gin facilities were at Hillston, nearly four hours away, but Auscott was building one in Hay to process the emerging production from southern NSW, and now northern Victoria.

In terms of water use efficiency, Mr Neville said cotton stacked up and he said projected yields would be in line with producers in similar climates in the Riverina.