During the recent drought that affected much of Australia, particularly in Queensland and New South Wales, the volume of containerised imports through the Port of Brisbane increased significantly.

It is increasingly recognised that the future of the Australian Cotton Industry is inextricably linked to parameters of 'permissible practice' as defined by the broader community.

The results of annual disease surveys in both NSW and Queensland continue to provide useful data on the distribution, incidence and importance of diseases of cotton in Australia.

What do consumers want from Textiles & how does this relate to cotton?

Maize or corn (Zea mays) is becoming increasingly popular as a summer crop in irrigated cotton rotations.

The rise of ground water and salinity persist as potential challenging issues across irrigated agricultural landscapes.

Summary * Pest managers were surveyed to benchmark mirid management practices * Many mirid sprays were applied when mirids were below threshold and fruit retention was high (>85%).

Knowing how you are performing compared to your region or industry, facilitates continuous improvement in management and water use. Unfortunately irrigation benchmarking data has in the past not been well recorded.

The current global food crisis mainly affects the poorest billion citizens on Earth.

I am going to talk about the changes in the global textile industry over the past few years.

Discussion with Darling Downs growers and consultants identified a lack of local quantitative results on the response of current Bollgard varieties to different irrigation deficits.

With the introduction of Transgenic Bollgard II cotton Australian populations of green mirid have required targeted insecticidal control, which may select for insecticide resistance in this pest.

Cotton has been grown very successfully in southern NSW as demonstrated by the very high yields achieved in recent seasons., Any industry expansion will be slow as it is obviously affected by water availability in com

Pyriproxyfen (Admiral), diafenthiuron (Pegasus) and bifenthrin (Talstar) are currently registered for whitefly control in cotton.

Climatic factors such as vapor pressure (the capacity of the air to hold water at a given temperature, which is used to calculate relative humidity) influence crop growth, including how much moisture from the plant is

Cotton is a global business and we have no shortage of competitors.

The National Cotton Training Coordinator project has involved the development of various training strategies that address this declining skill base.

Dall'Alba notes that we have no shortage of competitors', and 'we should not take the current high rating of our Australian cotton for granted'.

Summary of main points * There have been no reports of field failures of Bollgard II due to resistance. * A higher frequency of Cry2Ab genes are obtained using F1 screens compared to F2 screens.

The Measuring Community Wellbeing in Cotton Communities Study was commissioned by the Cotton Catchments Communities Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) to better understand the socio-economic status of communities where