What started as a normal season In Emerald soon became one of the most challenging for quite a while. Not only did we have low commodity prices, extremely hot weather and the normal contradictions of an average season, we also had for the first time in our industry in Australia, the Silver Leaf Whitefly (SLW). This insect can be a problem to the production of cotton, but it is their excretion (honeydew) that is the major problem. It creates classing problems and very large discounts on the P&D sheets. In the marketing arena, the perception of an area having honeydew is nearly as bad as having it exist physically. The insect problem at the moment only affects the Central highlands but they have already been detected in most other cotton growing areas.