Cotton

Water Smart Cotton and Grains

Water Smart Cotton and Grains is a water use efficiency project that improved knowledge transfer and built capacity within these industries to adopt best irrigation practice.

It followed on from the achievements of the ‘Knowledge Management in Irrigated Cotton and Grains’ and ‘Advancing Water Management in NSW’ projects to further improve water use efficiency within the cotton and grains industries.

Oxygation

Oxygation involves mixing atmospheric air with irrigation water using a venturi and delivering it via a surface or subsurface drip irrigation system.

Increasing competition on supply of fresh water for irrigation by agricultural, domestic, sports and industrial users demands water use efficient irrigation methods and compliance with environmental regulations.

Increasing the resilience of Eastern Australian irrigated farm businesses

This report looks at the experiences from farming systems that used experimental and participatory modelling methods to explore farmer’s opportunities to develop more profitable and less risky irrigated cotton, grains and rice-grains farm businesses.

Resilience of eastern irrigated farm businesses

This power point presentation looks at using land for both cotton and grains to take advantage of land resources and moisture reserves can mean economic and water use efficiency gains.

Water Smart Cotton and Grains

This case study looks at benchmarking irrigation and how it can improve decisions and profitability on Cotton farms using the Watertrack Rapid Tool.

Coordinating Deep Drainage Research in the Northern Darling Basin

A key issue identified by the research community working with the cotton industry was the lack of understanding and acceptance of the concept of deep drainage. Deep drainage is defined as the part of the water (applied to the surface and as rainfall or irrigation) that moves past the rootzone. In general the existing paradigm was “cotton soils don’t leak”. However, the research community related to the Australian Cotton CRC ( (more)...

Knowledge management in irrigated cotton and grains - stage II

This report summarises the major findings which have arisen from the project Knowledge Management in Cotton and Grains Irrigation. This report should be considered in conjunction with the detailed evaluation report prepared by Coutts JR consultants. The lessons learned are detailed and recommendations provided where appropriate. They are discussed under the following headings: Knowledge Management concepts and Extension methodology Training (more)...

LongStop

The FullStop Wetting Front Detector was designed to be a simple, inexpensive and robust device that gives a yes/no response to whether a wetting front has reached a particular depth. When searching for simplicity and low cost, tradeoffs need to be made with sensitivity; in the case of FullStop the decision was made to detect a 2 kPa strength wetting front. From a theoretical perspective, the FullStop Wetting Front Detector is not well suited to furrow irrigation, deep placement, cracking (more)...

Knowledge Management in Cotton and Grain Irrigation

The Australian Cotton Cooperative Research Centre through this knowledge management project aimed to develop a better understanding of the knowledge pathways being used by irrigated cotton and grain growers, consultants and support agencies.

The current study focused on how cotton and grain irrigators and their consultants access information about irrigation and generate knowledge to make better irrigation decisions.

Knowledge Management in Cotton & Grain Irrigation

Knowledge is fundamental to improving the competitiveness, responsiveness and levels of innovation that we see in industries. This research project aimed to determine how information and knowledge about water management and water use efficiency is being used and managed in irrigated cotton and grains and the key factors influencing decision making. To do this, 90 interviews of growers of cotton and grains, consultants, extension workers, government researcher officers, and irrigation (more)...