John Cameron, a cotton grower fondly nicknamed 'Cowboy', has returned to the winners' circle in the annual FastStart Cotton Establishment Awards.
Recognised for his excellence in crop establishment, the Darling Downs grower is again the overall winner of the dryland category.
In the pre-COVID era of the awards, Mr Cameron was among a lucky few to attend the FastStart tour of the Ord irrigation scheme, being the inaugural winner of the 2018-19 dryland category.
The winner of the irrigated category for 2023-24 is Jason Sinclair, Condamine, Queensland. Both Mr Sinclair and Mr Cameron will each receive a Kincrome tool kit for their ute or workshop valued at nearly $5000.
Mr Cameron said the resources made available through the FastStart cotton program continued to be very helpful in preparing for and establishing the window.
"The FastStart program is excellent... combined with our new FastStart weather station and moisture probes, it's all helpful with our establishment," Mr Cameron said.
Also contributing to this success was the exceptional seedling vigour of the new herbicide-tolerant seed variety Sicot 619B3XF (enabling glyphosate, dicamba, and glufosinate-ammonium to be applied over-the-top), which was also treated with Syngenta V2C-a seed treatment combination of Vibrance Complete fungicide and Cruiser insecticide.
"We didn't have any rain until late November by which point soil temperatures were high. We planted into standing wheat stubble, into a full moisture profile 2cm deep, then had a shower a few days later to help with establishment."
Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD) and Syngenta Australia, partners in the FastStart program, coordinate the awards to encourage attention to detail and the use of the program's tools, which were developed to support growers in the critical first 70 days of establishment.
CSD Extension and market development lead Peter White said cotton growers know better than most the value of quality tools whether they're kept on the back of the ute or on the FastStartCotton.com.au website.
"Winning is nice but what sets the cotton industry apart from some other sectors is the willingness to help others along the way, and what we're really aiming to do is showcase the help growers can access to grow great cotton crops," he said.
"Between CSD and Syngenta, we've pooled a lot of knowledge and created some really handy tools to assist growers with their establishment. Sometimes, the best way of learning is to see how they can best apply this to their crops."
The awards were launched in 2018 and have featured a winning dryland and irrigated cotton grower each year since. The competition rewards growers in their continuous efforts to improve production methods.
"There are many growers out there doing a great job of optimising their seedling establishment through the utilisation of Syngenta Seedcare™ technology that is applied to CSD seed and the agronomic knowledge brought to light through extensive FastStart™ research projects," said Syngenta Seedcare technical services lead Dean Hancock.
"The awards are a great way of doing this and sharing best practices with other growers."
FastStart Cotton research and development is funded through the proceeds of each bag of seed sold through CSD, which comes with the added protection of Syngenta Seedcare treatments.
