The Winter 2020 edition of CRDC's Spotlight magazine is out!
In this edition, we bring you:
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A feature on the industry's second Sustainability Report, which has been five years in the making. The report represents how important we as an industry view the impact and imprint we have on the land and society. The Australian industry continues to improve its record of stewardship of natural resources and takes this responsibility seriously, as evidenced by the production of the report, which shows we have made great improvements. Now is the time for the industry to seek more ways to continually improve.
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A look at the CRDC-supported research into how we manage diseases of cotton, looking to create natural suppressiveness in our soils, and treating the cause rather than the symptom. New research, some of it using many years of data collected in annual disease surveys, is building on what we already know to help growers alleviate the negative impact of disease by creating healthier soils. It all starts with the soil, as you'll see in the Spotlight feature on disease suppressive soils research.
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An insight into the $2.1 million research program for Northern Australia, supported by CRDC, to trial high value crops such as cotton with potential rotation crops.The two-year, Potential for broadacre cropping in the Northern Territory project is being co-funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia (CRCNA), CRDC, GRDC and 14 industry partners. The project will collate historical broadacre cropping data, natural resource information and an understanding of market opportunities to support the development of viable broadacre cropping systems in the NT.
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News re the CRDC Grassroots Grants program, which will run again in 2020-21. The grants are open to cotton grower associations (CGAs) to support local projects, with funding of up to $10,000 available. To date, 77 projects have been supported, which has seen nearly $670,000 going back to local grower organisations.
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A spotlight on the Smarter Irrigation for Profit phase 2 project, led by CRDC, which kicked off in late 2019. The project is a partnership between the major irrigation industries of cotton, dairy, sugar, rice and grains, plus research organisations and farmer groups. It is building on the success of on the initial Smarter Irrigation for Profit project, which wound up in 2018. Phase 2 is addressing the challenges of reduced water availability by improving the water productivity of crop and pasture irrigators, through developing new precision irrigation technologies, improving existing technologies and facilitating faster uptake through producer-led demonstration sites.
