The 2010 cotton crop tops quality

Australian cotton growers have produced outstanding quality fibre in the 2009-10 season according to one of the industry’s leading cotton classers.

Speaking on CSD’s Web on Wednesday broadcast, Jon Hurford, general manager of ProClass Goondiwindi, who classed 30 percent of the Australian crop, said the quality of the 2010 harvest was amongst the best in the industry’s history.

Fibre length, according to Mr Hurford, has been very good this year, with all but a small amount making the industry’s base grade of 36 thirty seconds of an inch.

“It has averaged between the 38 staple range – just on 1.18 inches. We’ve had very little discount staple length – below 35 staple has been below 1 percent nationally,” he said.

“Strengths have been a little bit up and down – we’ve averaged 30 grams per tex which is good. We have seen some low strength – mainly from central Queensland due to the weather conditions they had up there prior to picking – but still it was less than 3 percent that was discount strength,” he said.

Micronaire too has been very good with less than five percent of the national crop outside the base parameters of 3.4 to 4.9 micronaire units.

“Micronaire has been excellent – it has averaged 4.2 nationally. There were some little pockets of high micronaire on the Darling Downs and in western Queensland, but again, the proportion nationally was quite low – probably less than 1 percent,” he said.

“There was some low micronaire in the southern areas like the Macquarie and Hillston, and also in later picked crops in the Gwydir and the Namoi, but again, the proportion nationally was pretty low.”

Mr Hurford said leaf and colour were also very good this season with the unfortunate exception of Central Queensland who experienced long periods of wet and cloudy weather just before harvest.

He said the very high quality grades of 21-2s and better comprised just under half the national crop and the base grade of 31-3 was about one quarter.

The regions which produced the best cotton this year were the Darling Downs, Gwydir, Macintyre and Lower Namoi.

“They were all a standout –the southern regions weren’t too far behind – there was just a few low micronaire problems there later on and a bit of colour due to late picking but those four regions I mentioned were a standout,” he said.

The 2009-10 season was the first commercial release of the new variety Sicot 71BRF which, due to its high yield, regional adaptability and disease tolerance, comprised about 75 percent of the total Australian crop.

Consequently Jon Hurford said its results reflected the outstanding statistics of the national crop.

“It’s a pretty good variety as far as classing goes,” he said

Cotton Seed Distributors agronomist David Kelly said the national results for Sicot 71BRF reflects the data collected in their trial program and the feedback they had received from clients.

“Its probably been placed in more varied situations than any other variety we’ve ever had – irrigated, dryland, everything in between and from Emerald in the north to the Lachlan in the south and we’ve had nothing but good feedback about it.”

“What’s particularly exciting for us, and for the industry, in the next generation of varieties that growers have access to this season – Sicot 74BRF which is similar quality to Sicot 71BRF but with higher yield and also Sicala 340BRF which has similar yield but big improvements in fibre quality,” he said.

“Sicot 71BRF will still be the most commonly planted variety in 2010, and with these other new ones coming through, we can only expect that next years fibre quality result will be just as good or better than the 2010 harvest,” he said.

Jon Hurford said the team at ProClass were about 99 percent through this years samples and expected to be finished in late August.

“We’ll do some Burdekin cotton later in the year but we’ll be pretty much done and dusted in 2 weeks,” he said.

19 August 2010

Further Information

Jon Hurford, general manager , ProClass Goondiwindi 0746 710333
David Kelly, extension and development agronomist, CSD 0428 950021