Seeds set for record 2011 cotton planting

More than 250 cotton growers and industry personnel attended the Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD) annual series of information meetings across the Queensland last week.

CSD general manager Steve Ainsworth said with most regions entering the 2011 planting with close to full irrigation capacity and good cotton prices, he was expecting the new crop to total around 700,000 hectares up from the record 650,000 hectares planted in 2010.

This increase will come from the Gwydir, Macquarie and southern NSW who are all much better off with irrigation water than this time last year. There’s been renewed interest from regions such as the Ord, Burdekin and not forgetting the groundswell in dryland cotton. Most other irrigation areas were close to full capacity last season and will be again this year,? he said.

To accommodate this, he said CSD have embarked on a record intake of certified seed crops thanks to ongoing support from their dedicated seed increase growers.

After we took our final orders in 2010 we did not have a lot of retained stocks but were happy to say we were able to supply the whole industry with high quality seed in the varieties they wanted.

We’ve maintained a pro-active and market-driven seed increase program and with 99 percent of this year’s seed crops picked and with our ginning, delinting and quality assurance processes well under way, we’re very confident we’ll comfortably meet industry needs for seed this season.

This season we have 17 commercial varieties across six technology traits offering growers a wide choice.

CSD’s early seed order date is Wednesday 27 July, which Mr Ainsworth says will give growers a price incentive on seed plus guarantee timely delivery of varieties and seed treatment combinations of their choice.

Early ordering allows us to produce large volumes of seed at maximum efficiency and we’re able to pass on the savings associated with this. We also happily take orders any time during the season but we can’t guarantee immediate supply and there may be some limitations on varieties or seed treatments.

He said while there would be no new commercial variety releases in 2011, some small quantities of three new lines set for a 2012 release would be included in seed increase and trial work.

There is Sicot 75BRF- a variety with very high resistance to fusarium wilt, very good fibre properties and yield better than the popular Sicot 71BRF.

We have a new Bollgard II/ Liberty Link variety, yet to be named, which has improvements in yield, disease resistance and fibre properties over Sicot 70BL.

Finally, there will be a new conventional variety, also yet to be named, which has better yield, disease resistance and fibre quality to Sicot 71. It will be our first new conventional variety since Sicot 75 was released in 2007 and underscores our commitment to deliver varieties focussed on market needs be that conventional or transgenic.

These new varieties are a part of the ongoing process of yield and fibre quality improvement which is achieving our goal of increasing the profitability of Australian cotton growers,? Mr Ainsworth said.

CSD’s information meetings continue throughout New South Wales this week. For venues and times, visit www.csd.net.au.

17 June 2011

Further information:
Steve Ainsworth 0267 950000