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news & new products Commitment to Fertcare INCITEC Pivot Fertilisers has reaffirmed its commitment to promoting farm productivity while protecting the environment, following the renewal of its Fertcare licence. Renewing the licence means that the company’s frontline employees have been trained to handle fertilisers responsibly and to advise about their use while minimising environmental and food safety risks. The licence allows Incitec Pivot Fertilisers to display the Fertcare logo on all its stationery and premises across the eastern States. Fertcare is a national stewardship program which trains people involved in handling, transporting and applying fertilisers. It also offers accreditation for agronomists advising farmers about using fertilisers. The program is a joint initiative of the Fertilizer Industry Federation of Australia (FIFA) and the Australian Fertiliser Services Association (AFSA). James Whiteside, chief operating officer of Incitec Pivot Fertilisers, said the Fertcare licence gave customers, farmers and the wider community confidence that the company’s products were being sold and used responsibly. “As a business, we are committed to promoting responsible use of fertilisers and sustainable farming practices to everyone in the Australian farming James Whiteside. sector,” James said. “It is important that we take a leadership role in the industry, not only to promote responsible use but also to help growers optimise productivity.” Fertcare training operates at three levels : ■ Level A is for people involved in the direct handling of fertilisers and has a strong focus on environmental and food safety risk management, particularly in relation to transport, storage and spreading. ■ Level B is for sales and marketing staff and aims to improve their knowledge of fertiliser products while enabling them to provide warnings and simple advice. ■ Level C is for plant nutrition advisers and covers a detailed and complex knowledge of environmental issues, including the use of a fertiliser environmental risk assessment and management methodology. James urged all serious participants in the fertiliser industry to commit to Fertcare. Fertcare is also being actively promoted in the industry by the Fertilizer Industry Federation of Australia. Over coming months, FIFA will continue to create Fertcare awareness among farmers and distributors in areas recognised as environmentally sensitive, including north Queensland. The aim of this campaign is to create awareness among farmers about the value of using Fertcare-accredited advisers and licensed businesses. ICA president and board members elected THE results of the elections for the ICA leadership team have been announced at the Association’s Annual General Meeting, which was held during its ‘Hong Kong 2012’ trade event In November. Ahmed Elbosaty (Chairman & Managing Director, Modern Nile Cotton Company) takes on the role of ICA President. Ahmed will be supported by Mohit Shah (Director, Gill & Co) as First Vice President and Jean-Marc Derossis (Managing Director, Plexus Cotton Ltd) as Second Vice President, who re-joins the board this year. Also re-joining the board is Jamie Welsh (Owner, DJ Welsh Consulting) and new to the board is Richard Pollard (Senior Trader, Ecom Agroindustrial Asia Ltd). Now consisting of 22 members, representing 14 countries, the new board line-up continues to represent the Association’s global membership across all sectors of the supply chain and builds on the ICA’s international credentials to engage the entire cotton community. On accepting the role of President, Ahmed said: “ICA’s fate and direction is not about its president, it is about a common vision shared by its entire board, its past presidents, its management and, most importantly, its members. “ICA’s ultimate goal is to provide a safer trading environment. One way we can do this is through membership, making sure it encompasses everyone along the value chain. Membership cannot be viewed as an exclusive club or a group of cotton merchants – it isn’t, we now have membership categories for all firms. It cannot be viewed purely to serve the interests of the big merchants – it doesn’t, I represent a small trading house out of Egypt. It is not about being English or European – I am African, the Vice President is Indian and our board is truly international. I know that my role as ICA President is not going to be easy, but I promise to follow in the footsteps of previous presidents and preserve the values of the ICA.” Visit the ICA website at www.ica-ltd.org/about-us/our-board to view the full ICA Board line-up. The ICA new Board leaders l - r: Mohit Shah, Ahmed Elbosaty, Jean - Marc Derossis 60 — The Australian Cottongrower December 2012–January 2013
District Reports… Central Queensland The season is well underway in Central Queensland with about 16,000 hectares of irrigated cotton planted around Emerald and 5000 hectares in the Callide/Dawson region. There was little need for replanting with plant stands generally good. Crops that were planted both early or later in the window around Emerald seemed to avoid the cold shock days and are growing well. Plants that emerged during the cooler period were a bit slower but are now recovering. There have been a few fields in the Callide/Dawson area with stunted, slow to develop patches and investigations as to the cause of these patches are continuing. Most farms have had the first irrigation with some starting on the second one. Early crops are starting to flower with all crops well into the squaring stage. There was some cool, cloudy weather with early Helicoverpa pressure that caused the early crops to shed some squares, but they seem to have recovered well. Other pest pressure has been low in the area with a few mirids and thrips around. Mealybug numbers have been zero to low in fields, around both Emerald and Theodore, but there are still significant numbers on ratoons and volunteers providing a future risk. In-field weed control has been reasonably good this year, but with the unusually wet winter, control of ratoons and volunteers has been a big challenge and are an issue in some crops, although in-crop cultivations have helped. Gail Spargo November 30, 2012 St George and Dirranbandi Well it would seem incredible that only nine months after the largest flood in the recorded history of St George we need another flood or at least a flow in the river to ensure that the channel farms around St George will have enough water to finish the season. Although we had more than 400,000 megs a day going past during the flood the fact that Beardmore Dam is but a small puddle of 81,000 megs seems to leave these growers in this predicament again. Considering that the last decent rain was back in May we are either in for a wet summer or another bloody long drought. River farms at St George and Dirranbandi at this stage have enough water to ensure that they will finish crops off and have some water left over for next season as well. Unfortunately a heat wave during the past two weeks with temperatures averaging 41–44ºC has certainly increased the evaporation rates. And due to the dry lower soil profile, irrigations have tended to average 1–1.2 megs per hectare instead of the normal 0.8–1 megs. But on the upside, fields in both areas look great due to the dry weather which has given growers the ability to control the crops’ growth more easily compared to the past two seasons – which saw crops waterlogged for the first two to three months. Growers tended to hold off planting till the beginning or middle of October this year, which has made a real difference to the start the crops have had. Fields planted during the first week of October are now flowering and are on track at this stage. Day Degrees so far are just above the long term average. Perhaps due to the heat wave conditions and the extremely high numbers of beneficials throughout the crops, pest numbers are very low at this stage. The only concern is that with the heat wave we will most likely see a flare up of whitefly later in the season though this will allow a few growers to finally get rid of their Admiral stocks. As we can have a flow in the river (half the size of last years will be fine) we should be in for a good season as long as the dollar drops back to say 65 cents and the bale price rises to $500. Dallas King December 10, 2012 Border Rivers The planting and establishment process this year has been a very difficult and unforgiving one courtesy of a dry winter, minimal rainfall in October and predominantly back-to-back cotton. Most planting was starting to get under way in the first week of October but a cool and wet period around October 12 put a halt to proceedings and the bulk of the district was planted in the two-week period after this. Weather conditions during this time were generally drying – making conditions extremely unforgiving. While replant levels were generally lower than the past couple of seasons, the number of crops requiring a flush two to four weeks from planting was more common. Temperature-wise, the season has been slightly warmer than usual with day degrees about 10 per cent higher than average for October – November and cold shocks (13) and days over 36°C (5) both above average also. More telling is the rainfall total of 34 mm for this two-month period which included only one individual fall more than 10 mm. There have been some areas around the district that have been fortunate enough to get some storm rain but it has been patchy. Early indications on planted areas are around 45,000 hectares and 20,000 of irrigated cotton in the Macintyre and Mungindi respectively. This is a 20–25 percent reduction from last season. District Reports are proudly supported by December 2012–January 2013 The Australian Cottongrower — 61
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