Cottonisreallya wholenewballgame

“We still take soil tests but we don’t take the results as gospel.

“We also take regular plant tissue tests in-season and look at how each paddock performs to give us a better idea of soil health.”

The glaring midday sun bounces off the cotton crop, lighting up Johannes Roellgen’s face as he inspects the paddock to see how long it will be before the sea of fluffy fibre can be picked.

As he examines the white cotton in its boll, he reflects on how far the industry has come since he and wife Scarlett first grew cotton at Brookstead in 1994 after immigrating from Germany.

“We were share-farming with the Thomas family who owned the property then, and only half a day into harvesting our very first crop we got 10 inches (254mm) of rain over two or three weeks and lost 40 per cent because of decreased yield and downgraded product,” he says.

“We grew our first few crops with a lot of concern in terms of whether cotton growing was sustainable in this area.

“With its high upfront costs, we really felt it wasn’t feasible. It was just rolling the dice every year.”

Adding to the challenge were the widespread irrigation water cutbacks which started around the same time.

“During the Thomas family’s time on Tyunga, they were still building dams and getting water licences issued from the river,” Roellgen says

“Whereas when we started up, moratoriums preventing irrigation expansion were coming in, and it quickly became obvious we would potentially have to give up water.

“So the focus shifted to making do with what water you had and getting the most out of it.”

The Roellgens were part of a group of irrigators who eventually had their groundwater licences halved in a scheme negotiated with the Queensland government.

But nearly three decades after growing their first crop, they are still growing cotton in what they describe as an integral part of their wider cropping rotation which includes wheat, sorghum, corn and opportunity crops like mung beans when water is available.

The family was named Darling Downs Cotton Growers of the Year in September.

According to Roellgen, there are a number of factors that have allowed this to happen.

They include transitioning half the farm from flood irrigation to lateral move (spray) irrigation to decrease water use which has improved water efficiency from 1.4 bales of cotton per megalitre of water to two bales per megalitre.

This irrigation system also increases flexibility for fertiliser application.

Instead of applying all the crop’s nitrogen at planting, Roellgen now applies 60 per cent upfront leaving the rest to be applied when the plant most needs it. Alternatively, he can decide not to apply any more fertiliser if the crop doesn’t need it or there isn’t enough water to finish growing it. Spreading smaller amounts of fertiliser at different times reduces volatilisation, a process which causes nitrogen loss by ammonium converting to ammonia gas and escaping into the atmosphere.

Pest Management

Roellgen has also embraced Integrated Pest Management (IPM) with the goal of eliminating spraying for common cotton pests like heliothis pests (commonly known as the cotton bollworm), green mirid, cotton aphid and silverleaf whitefly.

Eighty per cent of the crop being picked in 2023 hasn’t been sprayed for pests and the remainder was only sprayed once.

One of the driving forces who has helped the Roellgens change the way they grow cotton is Toowoomba agronomist Matthew Holding.

Roellgen describes Holding, who owns Meteora Agronomic Consulting, as “the connecting link” for many growers in the area.

“Matt started us on IPM and planting crops like chickpeas to encourage beneficials (insects for pest control) (to breed up in higher numbers).”

Combined with Ingard, this reduced insecticide spraying significantly which saved money and a lot of time previously spent organising chemicals and spraying.

“If you had 20 fields of cotton, you were spraying every day so this timesaving freed us up to work on other areas of the business,” Roellgen says.

Ingard was the first genetically modified cotton developed by CSIRO and produced a toxic protein which killed heliothis when they ate the plant leaves. It was limited to 30 per cent of the national plant to avoid resistance issues.

In 2004, Ingard was replaced by Bollgard which produced more toxic proteins making it harder for pests to become resistant to it and meant there were no limits on how much could be planted.

Current Bollgard varieties are (also) herbicide tolerant, allowing for more weed control options.

But it’s not just technology which has improved Roellgen’s quality and yield.

He turned to the age-old practice of fertilising with manure, sourcing it from nearby feedlots.

“When I grew up in Germany, my parents farmed a system which had been farmed for hundreds of years and this made me realise that whatever (nutrient) you take out of the soil, (ultimately) needs to be replenished,” Roellgen says.

“We apply manure to increase potassium, but it ticks a long list of (boxes by providing other nutrients it contains, like) phosphorous and micronutrients like zinc and calcium.”

The soil’s gradual response to the manure means each paddock now has manure applied every third year after cotton picking at the same time as pupae busting.

Roellgen tracks the nutrients in his soil using a Nutrient Bank approach, a software that Holding developed.

“Going back 20 years, we’ve recorded what has been harvested in any field: the nutrients which are removed by every bale of cotton and every tonne of grain are tracked and over time we try to replenish what has been removed from the soil,” he says.

Better Practices

Given Roellgen and his wife both had their doubts about growing cotton initially and the fact that there is some lingering public opposition to the crop, I ask him what made them change their minds and stick with cotton.

Before answering the question, he acknowledges that as a grower he’ll be accused of bias, but he tries to look at it objectively.

“There’s still a lot of bad legacy issues for cotton in terms of opinions and press, but at the same time, there’s been big improvements made through changing management practices and technological advances.

“We grow more cotton with half the water we had when we started and it’s an annual crop so if we don’t have the water, we just don’t grow it.

“You don’t have this choice with permanent crops like almonds.

“Insecticide use has dropped drastically and in some cases it’s been eliminated entirely, synthetic fertiliser use has reduced and water efficiency has improved.

JohannesRoellgen,left,saysadvances intechnology,improvedpest managementtechniquesandincreased waterefficiencyhavemadecotton growingsustainable;andDarling Downscottongrowersarehappywith thisyear’syields,below,considering theunseasonablycooltemperatures

Pictures:JacintaCummins

“At the end of the day, cotton is integral to our system as it usually comes out on top in terms of the dollars you can make per megalitre and water is our most limited resource.

“But it’s one part of our focus, not all of it.

“Our other crops provide agronomic benefits like stubble for surface cover and nitrogen fixation and also help spread the financial risk more evenly in those challenging extreme wet and dry years.”

Thedownsfarmer

tuesday,May30,2023

Program

Tuesday, June 6

●GrowerPanel1(noon–1pm): Rob Davies and James Traill on Adapting to address workforce challenges and workforce engagement.

●GrowerPanel2(1pm–2pm): Renee Anderson and Aaron Kielly on Wellbeing at work.

Wednesday, June 7

●Workshop1(10am–11.30am): Developing video training resources to support new entrants to learn (and current team members to revise) on-the-job skills with Troy Smith and Renee Anderson.

●Workshop2(12.30pm–2pm): Wellbeing at work workshop with Chantal Corish.