THE COTTON sector's renaissance after the horror 2018-19 drought seasons is set to continue with the industry's peak body forecasting a big harvest.
Cotton Australia chief executive Adam Kay said as picking moves further south into NSW that his organisation believed it was likely to be a record crop in terms of value and potentially also in terms of bales produced.
"Both the irrigated and dryland sectors have had good seasons overall and there was a large crop planted so things are looking pretty good," Mr Kay said.
"We had some issues with it being dry for the dryland crop in Central Queensland, while it got too wet in parts of northern NSW and southern Queensland, but by and large it has been a favourable season."
He said across the country there was an estimated 420,000 hectares of irrigated crop and 220,000ha of dryland cotton planted.
Of that, NSW made up 275,000 ha of the irrigated plant and 136,000g ha of the dryland, while Queensland accounted for nearly all of the 145,000 ha of irrigated and 84,000 ha of dryland cotton remaining.
"Conditions and prices were favourable at planting and we've been lucky enough to see this continue through much of the season," Mr Kay said.
He said current prices were at near record levels at around $900 a bale, but said it was important to understand growers were not averaging this across the entire crop.
"Growers have been marketing this crop for 18 months, so while the headline figure is $900 a bale, they could average perhaps $720-730 a bale, great money but not quite where the number is today."
Mr Kay said there had been some fantastic dryland cotton results achieved.
"South from the Darling Downs, down through Goondiwindi and into norther NSW the dryland crops are looking well above average if they avoided the rain, with the potential for 5-6 bales to the hectare or even more, which would be a great result."
Mungindi farmer Sam Heagney, South Bunarba Agriculture, said planting was starting in his region on the Queensland / NSW border.
"We haven't started ourselves but people who have are reasonably happy," Mr Heagney said.
"There is both dryland and irrigated stuff and they are generally going well."
"There was a small bit of dryland stuff flooded on typical floodplain country that was too wet for last year's winter crop so in a way that is to be expected, but the flipside is that the crop that wasn't flooded has done very well."
"It has been a fairly mild summer so we're also getting some good results from our irrigated crop in terms of water use efficiencies, we've only put on around 7 megalitres a hectare and are hopeful of 14 bales a hectare, which means around 2 bales per meg which is very good."
In Central Queensland, Alexandria Galea, CGS Emerald, said cotton crops across the Central Queensland / Central Highlands region were at different stages of development.
"Some of the earlier planted crops have already been harvested, while others have had their final irrigation, are in the midst of defoliation or are being picked, so there's a fair spread of crop maturities," Ms Galea said.
She said recent rain was unlikely to cause significant impact on cotton yield however further potential rain could pose challenges for cotton ready to pick, although there is the silver lining of its benefit for the upcoming winter crop.
"The recent wet weather has been the first we have seen in some time with a good general 40-80mm of steady, soaking rain across the area."
There has been some recent media attention on a spectacular result, which saw paddocks in the Emerald region yielding an incredible 23 bales a hectare.
Ms Galea said it was a good result for the growers in question.
"It has been a long season where our growers have worked with a range of planting opportunities, management strategies and water allocations/falls throughout."
"It is really exciting to see the high yields achievable in this region and how our growers are maximising their yield with their available water in our climate''
She acknowledged that with cotton prices around $900 a bale motivation to plant cotton was high when the area saw good rain late last year and the forecast for a wet season was strong.
However below average rainfalls during the growing season has challenged the yield potential of dryland cotton crops.
"There really is a mixed bag of cotton yields out there, with yields only certain following ginning."
Mr Kay agreed that 20 bale plus crops were the exception rather than the rule.
"Those reports are great, but they're only a small part of the plant."
Mr Kay said another area performing well was around Bourke in far western NSW.
"We're hearing some good reports of 15-16 bale crops around Bourke, the rain hasn't fallen locally to impact crops but it has fallen upstream to ensure good allocations.
"Further south it is still too early to tell what is going to happen in the southern valleys."
He said he was expecting a similar large plant next year.
"The moisture is there, we're likely to have the allocations of water required and the price signals are certainly there, although it is currently down a bit on the 2021-22 price."
Mr Kay said the current season had passed smoothly in terms of crop pressure.
"Excess moisture was the big one in most parts, there haven't been a massive lot of disease or pest pressures, which can be put down to our biotech traits combined with integrated pest management, there were some isolated things but given how wet it was things went fairly well on the pest and disease front."
Start the day with all the big news in agriculture! Sign up below to receive our daily Farmonline newsletter.