“Other key
statistics are that around 260,000 hectares of this year’s crop is
dryland production and the previous largest crop of 561,500 hectares was
recorded in 1998/99…This summer, cotton will stretch from
Queensland through northern NSW all the way down to the Murrumbidgee
valley in southern NSW. ..Cotton Australia CEO, Adam Kay, says
after a decade of drought, rain and strong international prices are
driving a long-overdue Australian cotton resurgence. ..“When you
add a wet start with the highest price for cotton since the 1860’S, then
you can see why we are on track for a record Australian cotton
harvest.” ..Mr Kay says the long term investment by the cotton industry into R&D can appear in ways that can’t be seen…“Growers
are telling us that without the availability of GM cotton varieties,
the weeds this year would be so out of control you wouldn’t just be hard
pressed to see the cotton for the weeds, you’d be lucky to find the
house. ..“This technology has helped the Australian cotton industry reduce our chemical usage by around 90% over the last decade.””

Date:12/13/2010

Source:www.fibre2fashion.com