Australian Cotton Industry Awards champions crowned

Quigley Farms at Trangie in the Macquarie Valley were crowned the Bayer Cotton Grower of the Year for 2021 and Ashley Geldard of Columboola Cotton near Miles was named AgriRisk High Achiever of the Year 2021 in front of about 130 industry peers at the MacIntyre Valley Cotton field day at Turkey Lagoon near Boggabilla on March 16.

The awards are part of the Australian Cotton Industry Awards, which recognise resilience and innovation through the cotton supply chain.

Speaking at the event, Tom Quigley said the win came down to teamwork.

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"I know it's cliched to say, but teamwork really does make the dream work," Mr Quigley said.

"We couldn't have done it without our incredible staff, our family, and our agronomist, Chris McCormack."

Mr McCormack of Agronomic Business Solutions has advised the family for 28 years.

Also at the field day, Cotton Australia CEO Adam Kay congratulated the family on its innovation.

"The Quigley family are really working hard to drive water use efficiency, and I think what they've done in water use efficiency is a real positive on their farm," Mr Kay said.

"Water is the number one limiting factor for our industry, so doing innovative things to efficiency is really important. They haven't just done one thing, they've done a whole range of things to keep driving that."

Tom and his brothers George and Richie are fifth generation farmers, and with their parents Tony and Sally and staff, run Quigley Farms, a diversified and integrated family farming operation in the Trangie/Nevertire districts.

During the judging process, Tony said the 2020-21 crop would produce spectacular WUE results, with the furrow fields yielding 15.25 bales/ha for 5.7ML applied (2.67 bales/ML), and the linear move around 14.4 bales/ha for 4.43 ML applied (3.25 bales/ML).

The boys have centred their tertiary studies around agriculture, with Tom qualified in agribusiness while George and Richie have completed agricultural science degrees.

Both Tom and Richie have been Nuffield Scholars, and all three have a financial stake in the farms with associated debt.

Sally and Tony have stepped back from operational duties to transition to retirement with management transferring to the boys, who are taking the farm to the next level.

Tony has been a pioneer of water efficiency measures. As director of the Trangie Nevertire Co-operative Ltd Irrigation Scheme, Tony and the other board members succeeded in getting $119m in federal government funding for modernisation in return for half the water savings.

The result was the rebuilding of 108km of delivery channel with synthetic lining, new remote-control gates, metering systems and a separate stock and domestic water pipeline as well as on-farm works.

The objective was to increase both water delivery system efficiency and on-farm WUE for all users, resulting in transmission losses reducing dramatically from 27pc to 5pc, and crop WUE has improved by 20pc under the overhead irrigation at Quigley Farms.

Ashley Geldard said he was surprised and honoured to receive his award.

"I didn't expect to be standing here accepting an award. It's a nice surprise, and I'd like to thank everyone who has helped me along the way," Mr Geldard said.

Cotton Australia CEO Adam Kay said by converting his operation from a dryland farm to an irrigation farm using coal seam gas water was just one way the grower was leading the way.

"He's doing something different using the water from the coal seam gas - driving water use efficiency all the while growing high yields. And it's just such an innovative operation overall," Mr Kay said.

Mr Geldard farms 750 hectares at Miles including 300ha of irrigated cotton in rectangular paddocks with circular centre pivots.

Every field has a combination of overhead irrigation under the pivots and the areas outside are flood irrigation or furrow irrigation.

The farm sources treated water from a CSG development which is supplied under pressure into storage on farm.

During the judging process, the grower said efficiency was key.

"We try to keep it as efficient as possible including our energy use," Mr Geldard said.

"We are feeding the water under pressure to the suction side of our pumps which are all variable ramping diesels so they will ramp up only as much as required to add the additional pressure they need for our system."

The winners of the ADAMA Chris Lehmann Trust Young Cotton Achiever of the Year Award, the Cotton Seed Distributors Researcher of the Year Award and the Service to Industry Award will be announced ahead of the cotton conference in August on the Gold Coast.