Effective crop destruction is an important part of the management of a Bollgard 3 system.

Ratoon cotton poses a resistance risk as it extends the amount of time Helicoverpa are exposed to the toxins contained in Bt cotton outside of the cotton growing season. Ratoon cotton is a host for pests and diseases. Pests such as aphids, silverleaf whitefly and mealybug can use ratoon cotton to survive over winter and re infest the following cotton crop. Ratoon cotton can also carryover disease such as verticillium wilt, black root rot and fusarium wilt. In other crops and subsequent cotton crops, ratoon cotton is considered a weed and can affect yield through plant competition.

Hello everyone,

As I write this, it is the beginning of National Reconciliation Week. In the spirit of reconciliation, FRRR acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands on which our programs are delivered, and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to their Elders - past, present and emerging. We encourage everyone to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia. As I reflect on the extraordinary times we continue to experience as a nation and global community, it seems especially appropriate that this year's theme is In This Together - as we certainly are.

New South Wales water officials have acknowledged that decades of unregulated and unmeasured floodplain harvesting by irrigators was illegal, the minutes of recent meetings show.

At a January meeting, a week before the first drenching rains in northern NSW, members of a senior government water group discussed the legal implications of irrigators harvesting floodwaters, a widespread but unregulated method that accounts for up to a third of the water used by operators in the northern part of the Murray-Darling Basin.

The practice of irrigators collecting floodwaters using banks and levees to divert the water into large storages and dams has been blamed for contributing to declining flows further down the Murray-Darling River system. The 2018 South Australian royal commission described floodplain harvesting as “one of the most significant threats to water security in the Northern Murray-Darling Basin to both licence holders and downstream states”.