Forging partnerships between cotton growers from north to central Queensland is creating knowledge and support networks.
Through a CRDC Grassroots Grant, members of the Central Highlands Cotton Grower and Irrigators Association (CHCG&IA) spent a week in the north of Australia, knocking out over 13,000 kilometres to share information and reconnect with their northern counterparts.
The trip involved CHCG&IA members, agronomist Josh Bell, CRDC Senior Innovation Broker Susan Maas and Cotton Australia Central Highlands Regional Manager Robyn Lehmann. Cotton Australia Senior Policy Manager Simone Cameron, who is based in Katherine NT (Jawoyn country), also joined the group.
The growers made the most of being up north, visiting 13 farms across WA and NT, including farms belonging to cotton growers both old and new to the north. Also on the agenda was a visit to the Katherine Research Station, where CRDC-supported variety and nutrition trials are underway, and the Northern Australia Crop Research Alliance's Sunn hemp cover crop and rotation trials in WA.
Susan Maas has worked for CRDC as an Innovation Broker from her home in Emerald (Gayiri country) for over a decade, and developed long-standing connections with growers and researchers in the Central Highlands.
She said the trip north resulted from a Grassroots Grant a few years ago, where northern growers travelled to Emerald to see what they could learn from growers there to implement in the north, due to some climate similarities and conditions.
"There's a lot we can learn from each other in respect to our climates and the unique and evolving challenges involved," Susan said.
"The aim for the NT and WA growers was understanding the challenges the Qld growers had faced, dealing with monsoon conditions."
Earlier this year, the NT growers extended a reciprocal invite to the Central Highlands growers to go north to see how they were faring.
"The grant was about going north and following up on the discussions held at Emerald and looking at the NT cotton to see what had worked and what hadn't," Susan said.
"There are growers in Kununurra who want to look at longer flowering, and while long season cotton isn't able to be grown in WA, we could take some principles from it."
Shared themes are the effect of humid growing conditions, potential cover cropping options and the importance of trial work to refine the crop management system.
Further to advancing agronomic information and understanding crop production challenges, the CRDC Grassroots Grants program recognises the importance of grower connections with each other and with industry bodies.
Bringing people back together
For Robyn Lehmann, there was an important added benefit to growers from the trip they hadn't anticipated.
"I saw a fantastic reconnection of growers within our own CGA, and the younger generation connecting well with more senior growers," Robyn said.
"We didn't realise before this trip that we were all really wanting this reconnection.
"There was such a great opportunity for exploration of ideas and observations during the trip, through shared learnings, recognising similar challenges between the 'older' growing region of the Central Highlands with the newer growing regions of NT and WA.
"There was a lot of encouragement from our group for the northern growers to keep trialling, finding ways, utilise the CGA, Cotton Australia and CRDC resources to build capacity of knowledge to keep improving the region to see results."
The simple Grassroots Grant is now seeing long-term benefits based on the connections made.
Robyn recently arranged a virtual catchup with the Emerald growers, Susan and Simone and invited along Hugh Ball of 'Manbijim' Kununurra (Miriwoong country) and Andrew Parkes of 'Blackbull Station' in NT (Malak Malak country) to give updates on how their season has progressed since the visit in April.
"Both Hugh and Andrew gave updates on their learnings and findings since the visit," Robyn said.
"It was a fantastic reconnection of the growers from both regions again and we've arranged for the next online catch up to be more towards September/October when the season in the north draws to an end."
For CRDC, this is fantastic news.
"It's really important for CRDC that the CGAs are engaged in the industry and that's why we support these trips through our Grassroots Grants program," Susan says.
"The conversations that happen on these trips build the local relationships and there is huge value in sharing information across the regions: we've seen these tours improve irrigation efficiency, for example, by bringing new information, techniques, technology and infrastructure to growers from the south to the north of NSW, and vice versa.
"There is a lot to be learned from people challenging how you do things or sharing how they approached a problem.
"On this trip north, for me it was good to just listen to the growers talking among themselves, as well of course of the discussions I was a part of.
"It helps me understand the research needs and what CRDC can do to support them through research and for me to keep practicality at front of mind."
This article first appeared in the Spring 2025 edition of CRDC's Spotlight magazine.
