CSD trials expand from Emerald to Swan Hill
- By: "Farm Tender" News
- Cattle News
- Jan 03, 2018
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Just as the cotton growing area has expanded in 2017, so too has Cotton Seed Distributors’ trial program. With more than 125 trials being conducted by CSD’s Extension & Development (E&D) agronomists this season, the trials program collates important crop data from across the industry – from Emerald in Central Queensland, through to Swan Hill just over the Victorian border.
With the cotton industry continuing to expand into new regions and interest in dryland cotton increasing, CSD have increased the number of dryland trial sites this season, to almost 30. A further 98 irrigated trials are also being conducted by the E&D team.
The majority of both the dryland and irrigated trial sites are large scale variety trial sites, planted with commercial farm equipment to reflect normal farm conditions and practices. The information gathered from these trials is used to assist growers and agronomists with cultivar selection for their local conditions.
The E&D team are heading into the fourth season of the CSD Ambassador Network program, a collaboration with growers and other industry co-operators to develop a network of commercial scale field or trial sites across each of the major cotton growing regions. These trial sites are intensively monitored by the E&D team throughout the season, the crop data analysed and benchmarked, and the findings communicated to the industry.
CSD is also conducting a number of agronomic and disease trials at their seed production and research facilities, CSD Farms, located between Narrabri and Wee Waa. These trials will explore issues such as plant population and uniformity, as well as a range of measures to manage Verticillium wilt, such as row configuration and irrigation frequency, plant population and nutrition. A number of “box” trials will also be planted to provide more data to rank varieties for both Verticillium and Fusarium wilt tolerance.
More information on those trials can be found HERE.
A demonstration field day at CSD Farms is planned for March 2018, with more details to come.
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