With the 2023-24 cotton season now underway, growers are being encouraged to enter their crops in the FastStart™ Cotton Establishment Awards for a chance to win prizes.
From seedbed preparation to nutrition, variety selection, planter calibration, all the way through to planting timing, the FastStart™ Cotton Program provides growers and their advisors comprehensive yet easy to use resources to make their crops a winner in every sense.
Now open to growers across Australia’s cotton valleys, there’s 11 prizes for regional winners in the form of $1000 gift cards to Total Tools.
Focused on the pivotal first 70 days of cotton crop establishment, FastStart™ partners CSD and Syngenta will review the entries throughout the course of the season. On top of the $1000 regional prize, the two overall winners will also receive a Kincrome tool kit for their ute or workshop valued at nearly $5000 each.
“Winning is nice but what sets the cotton industry apart from some other sectors is the willingness to help others along the way, and what we’re really aiming to do is showcase the help growers can access to grow great cotton crops,” said CSD Extension and Market Development Lead Peter White.
“Between CSD and Syngenta, we’ve pooled a lot of knowledge and created some really handy tools to assist growers with their establishment and sometimes the best way of learning is to see how the best apply this to their crops.”
Last year’s major prize-winner for the irrigated category, Matt Richards from Nobby, QLD, was a first-time cotton grower, demonstrating the power of the knowledge and tools now available to growers.
“Having access to those FastStart™ tools was pretty important, especially being a first-time cotton grower, it just makes it so easy to back yourself,” said Matt.
“Good quality tools are important, from the weather apps on your phone, to the online FastStart™ tools, and even the tools on the back of your ute, to get you across the line.”
Now making the switch from sorghum to cotton as his preferred summer crop, to compliment his horticultural activities, Matt said it couldn’t have been easier to adapt his farming practices. A contract grower for Three Threes Condiments, growing pickling onions under irrigation, Matt has been quick to adapt his skillset to the new challenge.
“It’s one of the easiest sectors I’ve started in, because everyone’s so willing to help you out, it’s quite different to horticulture in that sense which can be very competitive.”
The traffic light indicator is a well-used resource among cotton growers to determine the optimum time to plant their crop, and is just one area that CSD and Syngenta have now invested more than $3 million in, to the benefit of growers. The traffic light indicator utilises a network of soil temperature probes across Australia’s key cotton growing areas.
Syngenta Cotton Lead and Territory Sales Manager for the Border Rivers, Andrew Dayas, said the calibre of entries year-on-year had remained high.
“When it comes to cotton, like many facets of farming, Australian growers are among the best in the world,” he said.
“We’re only scratching the surface with The FastStart™ Cotton Establishment Awards, and we look forward to seeing what we can all learn from this year’s entrants.”
The competition doesn’t assess outright yield, instead emphasising establishment and the foundations for an efficient crop utilising tools such as the FastStart™ Cotton Soil Temperature Network, helping to manage early season yield limiting impacts. Planter uniformity and evenness of the emerging crop are key criteria that strongly align with FastStart™ principles. Growers are encouraged to adjust their row configuration and seeding rates for optimum seedling performance as a foundation for optimum efficiency and eventually yield.
“There are many growers out there doing a great job of optimising their seedling establishment through the utilisation of FastStart™ research and tools,” said Andrew.
“The Awards are a great way of doing this, as well as sharing what best practice looks like with other growers.”
Visit www.faststartcotton.com.au for details on how to enter or speak to your local CSD or Syngenta representative for more details.
