Are you sure your crop is on Track for optimal yield?
January marks a crucial phase for many cotton crops transitioning into the flowering and boll development stage. This period is pivotal for ensuring crop management delivers on yield potential and ensuring optimal resource utilisation. Is your crop on track?
CottonTracka is designed to support optimal crop performance by visualising your own crop monitoring data alongside established crop performance targets. During the flowering phase, counting bolls emerges as the first and likely most critical metric to gauge whether the crop is realising its potential. CottonTracka seamlessly integrates your local climatic data and day degree accumulation to help with your crop performance assessments.
Explore the benefits of CottonTracka below…
For dedicated cotton growers and agronomists who seek to monitor and optimise their crops, understanding the often-underrated power of boll counting is crucial. Boll counting is our measure of whether our fields are blossoming to their fullest potential and is integral to our quest to maximise yields.
CottonTracka® is a practical tool by CSD that has been tailored for every cotton grower aiming to optimise their crop performance. It serves as a visual compass, guiding growers in aligning boll accumulation with the optimal rate from the inception of the first flower. This technology is crucial for managing boll numbers effectively alongside NAWF (nodes above white flower) decline throughout each growing season.
Reductions in the rate at which bolls accumulate, compared to day degrees, can indicate potential problems affecting the crop and, consequently, the yield. Such reductions in boll accumulation could be due to a variety of factors. These include severe weather events that aren’t accounted for by day degrees, biotic stress such as insects and diseases that affect growth or fruit retention, and other stressors like inadequate or excessive water, leading to waterlogging.
Identifying a suboptimal rate of boll accumulation is critical; it signals that intervention may be needed to address these issues and recover potential yield loss. Essentially, it allows for timely responses to resolve any adverse conditions affecting the crop, enabling growers to maintain optimal yield outputs. By keeping a close eye on boll accumulation rates and acting promptly when they are below optimal levels, growers can mitigate risks and optimise the health and yield of their crops.
Why Boll Counting is Indispensable?
In cotton cultivation, boll number stands as the most reliable barometer of yield potential. It trumps other indicators like retention percentages, plant height, and the number of nodes. Consistent monitoring of boll development throughout each season is the key to making informed and precise agronomic decisions.
As cotton growers, especially in the landscape of rising input costs, it’s pivotal to ensure every resource is maximised to bring forth efficient and optimal yields. CottonTracka is a real-time ally in this journey, offering predictive insights at critical production stages and assists in assessing climatic and environmental influences. It performs in real-time, in your field, for your own environment. CottonTracka is the ideal platform to assess your cotton crops ‘performance’, all season.
First Flower Timing and Crop Status.
Understanding when your crop will reach its first flower and its readiness to bear subsequent fruit loads is essential. By knowing how many nodes above the white flower your crop has, you can make valuable decisions related to irrigation and nitrogen applications. CSD STEFF®, integrated within CottonTracka, provides these crucial insights, allowing you to manage your crop effectively.
Flowering and Boll Set
Monitor your crop’s developmental trajectory and yield with the advanced prediction model, BARRY®, a collaborative innovation by CSD and CSIRO. Gaining insights into crop development and real-time yield predictions empowers crop managers to optimise individual fields or management units to maximise targeted yields or adeptly navigate within the potential constraints of the farming system.
BARRY is not just a tool; it’s a companion in prioritising field management and executing crucial Cotton Choices® decisions with precision. Empowered by sophisticated machine-learned algorithms that continually refine with new data each year, BARRY assures yield estimates with unparalleled accuracy and confidence. It’s about making informed decisions, optimising yields, and managing with precision and confidence.
The Continuous Evolution of CottonTracka:
Since its inception growers and consultants alike have been using CottonTracka to monitor the progress of their crops with considerable success. To ensure the program has the most up-to-date varietal characteristics applied, the CSD Extension team work extensively to ensure the most up-to-date growth curve and yield prediction information is collected.
CottonTracka is evolving continuously to serve as a trustworthy partner for both growers and consultants. It is regularly updated with the latest varietal characteristics, enhanced features, comprehensive analyses, and user-friendly access to reports and summaries, thus elevating the overall user experience for growers.
The below graphs have been updated based on a comprehensive and extensive analysis of CSD data collected from CSD ambassador and variety trials over the last seven seasons.
Total node and plant height development:
The graph presents the optimal rate of development and does not differ across varieties and regions (as day degrees account for this). For both measurements, it was found that there was a change in slope due to the influence of flowering and ongoing boll development. This graph starts from the date of seed imbibition. Note that optimal development does not need to follow the line specifically, however, to ensure that optimal development is occurring measurements need to follow the trendline (the slope of your measurements over time are important).
Why? Monitoring growth and development is important for crop management, reducing excessive growth ensures resources are not wasted on vegetative growth, and may assist in plant growth regulator (PGR) decisions – done correctly can reduce shading of lower canopy and bolls, and allow for improved insecticide and defoliant penetration.
Boll accumulation:
The graph presents the optimal rate of boll accumulation and does not differ between variety and region once flowering has commenced. Note that the rate of boll accumulation starts at first flower and day degrees are accumulated from that time. The same principal as node and plant height for rate of development applies to boll accumulation. Measurements need to follow the trendline rather than be specifically on the line (the slope of your measurements over time are important).
Why? “Resetting” day degree accumulation to 0 at the onset of the flowering period ensures that any prior influences on changing the timing of crop development are removed. Accordingly, a clearer picture of crop performance during this period and associated trends should therefore be better defined. Use in association with NAWF decline as per below.
NAWF:
The graph shows the average rate of decline across the CSD dataset. There is no optimal rate of decline for a season, variety, or region although this response is useful as a guide to help ensure that crops are cutout at the appropriate time. Other tools are in the pipeline to help refine this response to grower’s individual situation.
Why? Highest yields are often achieved when a crop flowers for as long as practically possible. Keeping this in context more compact/determinate varieties such as Sicot 606B3F, Sicot 714B3F on average reach cutout earlier than more indeterminate varieties including Sicot 746B3F (average 16 DD (DD1532) later) and Sicot 748B3F (average 51 DD later than Sicot 714B3F).
Downloads: To improve load times the seasonal and historical calculations have been set to be a specific user fetch operation. To obtain these outputs simply select ‘Downloads’ and download the appropriate report, this will export as a PDF.
A copy of the dashboard (graphs) can be exported to pdf for attaching to emails as well.
Unlock Insights with Pre-loaded Features
Day Degree Calculator: Just by entering your assessment dates, this tool will do the math for you! It calculates day degree accumulation in both Base 12 and DD1532 and pulls together other weather-related info you might need. Plus, it has data from the last 10 years ready for you to look at.
STEFF: This feature lets you know when the first flower of your crop is likely to show up, from seed imbibition to first flower. The model updates as further assessment dates are added allowing first flower date to be monitored and therefore managed for.
In conclusion, CottonTracka is transforming the way we approach cotton growing, emphasising the importance of precise boll counting for optimal yield. Created by CSD, this platform offers real-time, accurate insights throughout every growth stage, empowering growers to make knowledgeable decisions and manage crops efficiently. With its intuitive interface and consistently updated, trustworthy data, CottonTracka stands as an indispensable ally for farmers, guiding them through the intricacies of contemporary cotton agriculture and fostering excellence in every yield.
By the CSD Growth & Development Team