The Autumn 2024 edition of Spotlight takes a look at the town of Coleambally, where growers have tackled the issue of soil variability with outcomes that are delivering a win-win solution: helping improve productivity and returning dollars to the community.
Coleambally town and the irrigation district surrounding it has a unique history which also includes protecting biodiversity and remnant vegetation. It’s a region built on diversity and community, which has seen a resurgence in cotton growing over the past decade. This edition of Spotlight includes a series of fantastic feature stories on this region.
Looking further afield, late last year CRDC’s Acting Executive Director Allan Williams travelled to India for the International Cotton Advisory Council (ICAC) meeting to talk about sustainability and the role of regenerative agriculture in cotton. In this edition we look at the risks and benefits of regenerative agriculture practices, with a focus on cover cropping. You can read about the plans for a regional cover cropping guide for growers and the on-farm experiments trialling new crops on page 14.
Sustainability is already a core focus of CRDC’s under Clever Cotton, CRDC’s Strategic RD&E Plan for 2023-28, and cotton’s PLANET. PEOPLE. PADDOCK Sustainability Framework. One of our nine themes is carbon, and it features in this edition. CRDC has been part of a collaboration to deliver a carbon accounting tool – the Environmental Accounting Platform – with fellow RDCs and it’s now live for testing by cotton growers.
As all growers know, ensuring the RDCs work together is essential for leveraging your levy dollars. With GRDC, CRDC is continuing to forge a path in delivering technology to cotton and grains growers. One such example is WAND, which has just released new technology to give a 24-hour forecast for hazardous inversions. This is a game changer for time management and efficiency, along with reducing spray drift hazards.
