Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) has launched a $10 million five-year initiative to shift its approach to cotton disease research in Australia.
The move comes amid reports of escalating disease pressure impacting cotton yields, profit and grower confidence.
CRDC has teamed up with Australian Cotton Disease Collaboration (ACDC) to drive the five-year plan.
CRDC and ACDC are seeking partnerships from research, government, and commercial partners to understand the impact of disease, enhance foundational pathology resources and capability, and deliver tactical management and innovative technical solutions for cotton growers.
“The cotton industry has invested in disease research for several decades,” CRDC innovation broker Elsie Hudson said.
“And while we’ve built a huge knowledge bank and made some real gains, the breakthroughs are getting harder to find.
“We have a limited toolkit for managing disease, and with impacts rising, it’s time to shake up the way we do research and development. ACDC offers that.”
The first initiative is called Clever Cotton. According to CDRC, this initiative aims to deliver $1 billion in additional value to the Australian cotton industry through research, development and engineering. This plan is intended to boost the industry by increasing productivity and profitability, addressing the impacts of climate change, and improving decision-making using data and digital technologies.
“There’s a lot of work already underway in cotton disease R&D, and a lot of interested players,” Hudson said.
“ACDC will bring together researchers, commercial partners, innovators and government agencies willing to help CRDC define the challenge, co-design projects, and co-invest in solutions.”
Moree-based cotton grower Mick Humphries has been involved in CRDC’s disease research for the last five years. Humphries said he hopes the overall plan will be strategic and coordinated rather than the piecemeal approach which the industry “has relied on for the last 30 years.”
“Disease is so multifaceted that the solutions will be, too," he said. "At one end of the innovation pipeline, it means looking at blue-sky research that could transform disease control.
"At the other end, it means chipping away at the ‘one percenters’ – those incremental small changes that, when aggregated on-farm, can help growers claw back some of what we lose now.”
ACDC’s key mission is to reduce the economic impact of disease to less than 5% of the cost of production by 2028.
Humphries said he’d estimate that disease costs his business about 20% of its gross income per annum.
“Our farms grew cotton year in, year out through the 1980s and ‘90s, and that frequency of cropping allowed the disease inoculum to build up to the point where it has become a real production issue for us now.
“I want to claw that 20% back, so I’m excited to see what ACDC can bring.”
Interested partners are being called to submit an expression of interest to CRDC by August 21. Successful partners will be notified in September, with the co-design process set to commence in October.