The Australian irrigated cotton industry has doubled its water productivity over the last 25 years – lifting productivity from 0.60 bales/ML to over 1.22 bales/ML. Determining this improvement has only occurred because of the generous contributions of time and data by cotton growers.

To continue the assessment of water productivity, the Cotton Research & Development Corporation (CRDC), has contracted NSW DPI to collect water and yield information from growers. This information will be used to track the ongoing progress of water productivity improvement across the industry. This is an industry driven initiative about agriculture productivity and efficient use of the water resource.

The types of data we are collecting are the minimum requirements for calculating your farm’s Gross Production Water Use Index (GPWUI, bales/ML). The GPWUI from all participating growers is then aggregated and used to track the progress towards the water productivity and sustainability targets set by the industry. The more growers participating in the benchmarking the more defendable is the value of water productivity produced by the industry.

Our Australian cotton industry is the global leader in water productivity, using less than half the global average amount of water to produce cotton. It is the only Australian agricultural industry that is currently able to show continuous improvement in water productivity, which is determined by this ongoing benchmarking program. This is important to support and maintain our social licence and market access.

By providing the following information you agree to participate in the water productivity benchmarking project. All grower data collected will remain confidential and will only be used within the scope of this research project. For more information about how data is collected and stored please email Peter Regan: peter.j.regan@dpi.nsw.gov.au, Soil and Water Research Leader (North).

Each year we will send you the GPWUI of your farm. This can provide business insights for your water management decisions and assist with my BMP accreditation.

If you require any assistance filling out this form, please contact DPI water R&D researchers:

Sarah Dadd – 0477 705 114

Malem McLeod – 0427 936 147

If you have any of the required information already in another format e.g Ginning report, probe data, storage meter spreadsheet etc please feel free to attach those files or email one of the team members rather than filling in those parts of the form to save time. 

We appreciate your time and participation in this benchmarking project.

Cotton Water Productivity Benchmarking team

Dr Malem McLeod (Project Leader), Sarah Dadd, and Dr Jasim Uddin

NSW Department of Primary Industries

Irrigation Water Sources 

The following questions are used to gather data to calculate the water used during the selected cotton season. Please enter volumes in megalitres. If you already have this data in a document or spreadsheet, feel free to upload that at the bottom of this page instead. 

Irrigated Cotton Field Data

The following section relates to field information. If you have this information in another format (eg excel spreadsheet, gin report or soil probe data) upload it below the table and you can leave the table blank. For the area, enter the area of the field not the green area. For the Available Soil Water Columns, if you don't know the exact values, leave it blank or write 'full' if profile was approximately full or 'empty' if dry. If you've attached probe data you can leave the soil water columns empty. If you have more than 15 fields contact the one of the DPI team members

Soil Type

For the soil type in the 3rd last column, select one of the options:

A) Sandy with little silt or clay

B) Light sandy or silty loam, or well-drained alluvial

C) Self-mulching clays, clay loams, well-structured red loam

D) Heavy clays such as grey cracking clays, sodic clays or hard-setting red clay loam.

Acknowledgements
The Water Productivity Benchmarking Project is a collaboration between the NSW Department of Primary Industries and the Cotton Research & Development
Corporation.  

The NSW DPI would also like to thank MyBMP for their contributions in hosting the project survey. 

 

Copyright

© State of New South Wales through the Department of Industry, 2023. You may copy, distribute and otherwise freely deal with this publication for any purpose, provided that you attribute the NSW Department of Primary Industries as the owner

Disclaimer

Disclaimer: The information contained in this publication is based on knowledge and understanding at the time of writing (February 2023). However, because of advances in knowledge, users are reminded of the need to ensure that information upon which they rely is up to date and to check currency of the information with the appropriate officer of the Department of Primary Industries or the user’s independent adviser.