Improving the management of cotton diseases in Australian Cotton farming systems

This project is part of a broader Australian Government’s Rural R&D for Profit cross-sectoral investment assessing the implementation of digital technologies for more dynamic management of disease, stress and yield. It brings together industry data from separate disease surveys of disease severity and spread in NSW and Queensland with the aim of using new analytical approaches to improve management strategy advice. Linking farming system and management to microbial studies have helped show how microbial diversity is important for disease suppression. Thus a bare fallow and corn rotation both yielded significantly better than cotton back to back, but analysis of microbial diversity suggests that fallows will have less capacity for disease resilience. Other field trials include rotation, soil solarisation (using black plastic), and incorporation of sorghum residues.