Battery Hill cotton looking good despite 'horrible start'

Peter Lennox, who has managed the 900 hectare property for Morcott Pty Ltd since 2014, said the cotton had reached the 18 to 20 node stage and was looking surprisingly good considering the less than optimal early season conditions it had endured.

Challenges included unfavourable temperatures at germination and emergence, impacts from herbicide residue, and hail damage.

"It was a pretty horrible start but the season's been going with us to some degree with the extra moisture and we haven't actually had to do an irrigation yet," he said.

"I'm just about to start my first flood irrigation ... I'm expecting it will probably take about 1.2-1.5mL/ha. It has started to get a bit of a boll load on there and is fruiting up well."

As well as good falls of rain before Christmas and another 50mm about two weeks ago, hail from a storm on New Year's Eve knocked every square off the plants in numerous patches.

"It wasn't a large area, not over the whole farm, but it seems to have recovered fairly well from that surprisingly," he said.

"When we looked at the plant I knew it was going to recover but I didn't I didn't think it would recover as well as it has."

The timing was also better than last year when a nasty hail storm swept through in late February, significantly affecting yields.

About 300ha of mostly irrigated cotton is grown at Battery Hill each year, depending on water availability, along with odd patches of rainfed crops in places the irrigation doesn't reach.

Two varieties, Sicot 714B3F and Sicot 606B3F, are grown in a three-year rotation with sorghum and wheat.

Mr Lennox said the varieties were proven performers, consistently yielding the 8.5 to 10 bales a hectare.

"We don't aim for 13-14 bales ... and we're happy with that," he said.

About 160ha is under lateral and centre pivot irrigators, 115ha is flood irrigated using siphons over the banks and a small field of 25ha has been converted to bankless irrigation.

"Getting siphons to it and from it is a real pain," he said.

"It's a small area so we decided to test bankless and see how that all works in our system. It might be our way of moving forward, but who knows what technology is going to come along in the future?"

The heavy self-mulching black clay soils at Battery Hill have a higher water holding capacity than those in some other valleys, reducing how often the crops need to be irrigated.

The water comes from unregulated flows along the Mooki River when it's in flood and three bores - one powered by diesel and two by solar energy - on the property.

Average annual rainfall is about 380mm, but it has been more than a year since the river last flooded, and last year's rainfall amounted to just 273mm.

In June, 200 units per hectare of nitrogen as anhydrous ammonia was applied to paddocks where sorghum was grown and 160 units per hectare went on to long fallow paddocks.

After pre-irrigation, planting of this year's crop began in mid-October, with about 80ha of Sicot 606B3F replanted a month later.

As well as the fluctuating temperatures, the plant stand suffered from exposure to residue of the Group G herbicide Sharpen which had been sprayed 14 weeks before planting.

Despite being applied well outside the recommended plant back period of six weeks, Mr Lennox said it appeared the dry conditions had failed to trigger the herbicide, leaving some residue in the soil.

"It wasn't broken down and when we've hit it with the pivot to water it up we've activated it," he said.

"We haven't really experienced that before ... not that far out."

The crops were planted at 14kg/ha of seed on 1m row spacings using a John Deere MaxEmerge eight-row planter.

Roundup Ready with Plantshield was sprayed in early December and early January to control a range of weeds, including castor oil plant, noogoora burr, Chinese lantern and pigweed, also known as portulaca, as well as some grasses.

So far there have been no signs of disease or pests in large numbers.

Now the crop has achieved full canopy closure, the plan is to monitor for insect pests and possibly apply a lighter insecticide, such as Shield, by plane if it's needed to manage mirids.

At this point, Mr Lennox expects to water the crop twice more, applying about 4-5 megalitres per hectare.

"It might get a quick flush in late February or early March if I've got a bit extra water or it doesn't rain," he said.

For the past four years, Mr Lennox has been running an on-farm trial using plant-based sensors and soil moisture probes to guide irrigation timing and volumes, including working with former CSIRO research scientist Dr Hiz Jamali.

He's continuing the trial with the help of Goanna and Cotton Info, with a view to finding the sweet spot for irrigation to maximise water savings while avoiding the problems caused by overwatering, such as disease, and minimise yield loss from underwatering.

The usual plan would be to schedule an aerial spray of cut out Pix for late February, and a desiccation spray in early April.

"It depends on how hot it gets and where we get up to with water and storms," he said.

"Some of the hail damaged stuff might come in a bit later, but I'd like to think we'll be picking by the middle of April."

The bales will be sent to Namoi Cotton at Boggabri and Carroll Cotton at Carroll for ginning.

Mr Lennox said cotton prices appeared to be holding reasonably well, after falling on the back of two huge Australian crops.

"It has dropped back a bit, but the market is still pretty fair," he said.