CSD in readiness for big cotton season

Australian owned and operated seed company Cotton Seed Distributors has announced it is more than confident of supplying the industry with high quality planting seed in what will be a record national crop area.

Giving a company update on its weekly Web on Wednesday broadcast, CSD general manager Steve Ainsworth said while the 2010 harvest and ginning has taken longer than normal, all was in order to have seed available when planting started in September.

As far as seed quality goes, it’s so far, so good – the quality of our seed crops is pretty reasonable but growers don’t need to worry about the quality of seed too much because we won’t release seed which isn’t of merchantable quality which meets basics in terms of germination and vigour as well as containing the traits of interest that growers want.

Mr Ainsworth and the CSD extension and development team have recently completed an 18 stop information tour around all cotton production areas, attended by more than 800 people.

It was a fantastic two and a half weeks all up throughout all the production areas in Queensland and New South Wales. We had great attendances everywhere we went to places like Coleambally and other places where we haven’t had a big crowd in a while like in Warren for example and it was really fantastic to see a big turnout from growers, consultants and other people as the industry begins to bounce back from the drought.

For me, the highlights from the information tour were the information presented on the new Sicot 74BRF and its performance across the industry. Another thing which growers get a lot out of is the data presented by Dr Stephen Allen including the annual industry disease survey and what’s happening in the plant pathology landscape, he said.

Steve Ainsworth said CSD’s July 27 early order date was important for the company to be able to deliver growers the varieties they need at the right time for the lowest possible price and also guaranteed supply a particularly important consideration for the very popular Sicot 74BRF.

We are getting strong interest in Sicot 74BRF and we are presently about halfway into the seed intake. We are expecting to have considerably larger volumes of this variety than we had last year but this is a work in progress but so far so good.

I need to point out that while we do have good supplies of it, if growers are keen to secure this variety, I’d suggest getting an order in. I don’t think we’ll run out but there is a groundswell of interest in that variety, he said.

Mr Ainsworth said CSD had two new seed treatments available in 2010 for disease and insect control.

We are upgrading our base fungicide seed treatment to Dynasty Complete which is a new formulation of Dynasty which includes the same active ingredient as in Bion. This is in response to industry surveys and industry direction to have better plant establishment.?

Another exciting development we’ve been talking about for a couple of years now, and we’re edging closer to registration, is the new Cruiser Extreme product from Syngenta. This is a product which provides similar sorts of control to granular in-furrow insecticides and will be of great benefit where insects such as wireworm are a serious pest, he said.

In a further boost to the cotton industry’s research effort, Steve Ainsworth said CSD had established a Research Reserve to underpin the research contributions to Cotton Breeding Australia and other commercial applications for seed and technology.

He said the board of CSD have dedicated CSD’s surplus from 2010 to kick-start the Research Reserve.

This is a fantastic outcome for a company like CSD to be able to invest in this sort of research which has got long-term horizons. The products of this research in this collaboration are seven to ten years away from reaching their maturity and having the financial resources to deliver against that is very important.

One of the most exciting outcomes for this work funded by Cotton Breeding Australia is the marker for cotton bunchy top to allow our researchers to determine quickly whether a variety has resistance to this disease. With the help of this technology, we’ll soon see varieties come forward that contain resistance to cotton bunchy top and that will be great for the industry, he said.

6 July 2011

Further Information:
Steve Ainsworth 0267 950000

Watch the entire interview
www.csd.net.au/wow/show/1531/