With the creation of the CRC for Sustainable Cotton Production, weeds

research took focus to the development of sustainable, low input, cotton weed management systems for low weed pressure situations.

Since 1998, Mr Charles has concentrated on the development of a sustainable management strategy for cotton, focussing primarily on nutgrass ecology and management. The nutgrass management strategy that was developed, combined herbicides, cultivation and rotation crops and has shown that a dedicated approach to nutgrass control will allow cotton production and high yields on

nutgrass infested land, while controlling the weed population. The research, on what is considered to be the world's worst weed has resulted in a number of publications and the development of a nutgrass management package, "Controlling nutgrass in Cotton" with CRC support.

The scope of the project has been expanded over the last couple of years. 'The project is now working closely with the CSIRO cotton breeding team, bringing expertise in weed management into the evaluation and development of herbicide tolerant, transgenic cotton varieties. This season the project is working with 2,4-D tolerant, Roundup Ready and BXN (bromoxcynol tolerant) cotton varieties.