New plant varieties, sub-surface drip irrigation and corporate investment have helped to make a trial to grow cotton in northern Victoria a success.
The vast majority of the 110-hectare cotton trial has grown well, with Kilter Rural (the company responsible for the project’s management) agriculture manager Michael Neville saying the team was cautiously optimistic.
“Until the crop is picked and weighed, we cannot be sure, however we believe it’s within the high yield cotton range of about 160 bolls per square metre,” Mr Neville said.
“It’s dropped a lot of mouths, people said it wouldn’t be possible, but we’ve proved it is.”
The cotton trial between Swan Hill and Kerang is part of project funded by investment from VicSuper that has 1800ha under irrigation this year on which processing tomatoes, maize, grain sorghum and Lucerne has also been grown.
Such crop diversity helps to manage risk and allows for beneficial rotations.
In the coming years, this is planned to expand to 3500ha under irrigation, of which two thirds will be sub surface drip and the rest centre pivots and gravity fed.
“We credit VicSuper directors with having the foresight to invest in this project,” Mr Neville said.
“Tomatoes and cotton are game changers in this region – people said it was too cold to grow cotton here, but varieties have changed.”
He said there was a cotton growing trial in Robinvale some decades ago, but was not big enough to make it economically viable to harvest.
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As well as growing cotton in a new area, the trial also makes use of innovative irrigation.
A fully automated sub-surface drip irrigation system with tape about 30 centimetres from the surface provides plants with filtered water, fertiliser and other agronomical chemicals to the plants’ roots.
Sub-surface drip irrigation uses less water per bale of cotton grown than the traditional flood irrigation, Mr Neville said.
The trial will likely use nine Megalitres per bale in the first year, and then will be about 15 per cent less subsequent years, he said.
Sub-surface drip also avoids the cold snap of traditional flood irrigation on cotton plants, which temporarily suppresses growth.
The cotton has been forward sold and will be processed at AusCott’s Trangie, NSW, gin.
Mr Neville is hopeful future crops will be send to AusCott gin at Hay, which is expected to be operational in time to process next year’s crop.
Read more about cotton in this week's Stock & Land.
