I have been asked to touch on a couple things today, a long staple trial we grew this year but in keeping with seeding with success from Hannah I'll also give my two cents on a growers perspective on how we use the QR code system in the past to get the best results during the planting process for our clients. Now I won't stand here today before many of you and a long overdue catch up be your first night for most I'm sure uh I've generously been given 10 to 15 minutes but of my father's daughter so if I was to stand here for 15 minutes and talk to think you did more than a beer. I also know that most of you could teach me a thing or two when it comes to field prep operations in order for seeding for success so we also know the idiom of teaching someone to suck eggs so I'll skip over that and just talk about how we use the QR code in the past.

In a game where so many external factors in decision- making and operation such as weather disease you name it we've all heard that a large portion of what we do often comes down to luck and luck is as they say where prior preparation meets opportunity. So patience and a lot of soil temperature monitoring and often living by the weather channel and the opportunity will come, so what can we do to prepare.

As we know seeding for success, particularly in some less than ideal conditions starts with the best of field preparations, in the lead up to planting moves the soil temperature monitoring. And when you get the green light or in the Riverina a short 10 day calendar window with more days teetering on amber than green, we're often racing but I'll take a step back in the process and focus on seed delivery or for I could argue for larger programs to be one of the most important steps in ensuring that when the opportunity presents we're prepared and therefore luck's on our side.

When you bring in variables such as disease, impending rain on pre- irrigated country, what already is a narrow window can get quite narrower. The worst thing we can do is pigeon-hole ourselves into this narrow window or worse push ourselves too far the side of that window. Many of us can attest to doing this in 22-23 and for those unaware in the Riverina we broke all the wrong records during planting 22-23. Record high rainfall, low solar radiation, low temperatures you name it. So after this 22-23 season we knew we had to get nothing but the best planting outcome, for this season now had to not only carry its own but make up for the one prior. Our ultimate aim for doing this was to get each and every one of our inputs to work for us. We use inputs such as chemical and fertilizer with the aim of maximizing their efficiency so why not do the same with our seed.

The most simple change we made was to stand back and take stock. We recorded all of our seed delivered and their respective AUSLOT information. In the south we focus mainly on cool germ and as Hannah has just shown warm germination is an indication of seed viability and viability should set our planting rates. While cold germination is an indication of seed vigour and should set our timing. Hannah has shown us that testing for these things is one thing but understanding their information and how we interpret these results to get the best out of them is another.

The QR code information can tell us a lot but, there are factors that affect their performance that the lab can't account for. No one knows our saws in our fields as well as we do. So first took stock and recorded all the information most relevant to that farm at that time, in this case was cold germination. We then organized our seed out in the shed first in terms of seed density for preferred planting variety order, and then within each variety in terms of uh our germination and vigour. We put our highest cold germ at the front and the poorest at the back. Any outliers went straight to the back of the shed. This meant that during the planting process any one of the people that came into our shed would first take from the front and work their way to the back. Now the hope for this was that during our most trying conditions at the start of the planting window we would have our most vigorous strongest seed in the ground and go from there as planting progresses we move through to the back of the shed planting our less vigorous seed when we had more ideal conditions, less exposed to risk to get the best out of that seed.

So in cases like the one just gone we were up in the stirrups in late September as soil temperatures gave us the green light for planting, but the weather soon took a turn for the worst as it often does with rain falling 10 days into planting with over 60% of the seed in the ground. Fifty-one millimetres and ambient temperatures fell below 4.4 degrees. Some fields are pre- irrigated, others watered up and some both for.

For context last year this event on the 4th of October, our soil temperatures fell to 6 degrees yet on the 26th of October when ambient temperatures fell to 5 degrees soil temperatures remained steady at over 16. Once the seed starts to inbibe under these conditions we turn to this cool germination on our bags as an indication of seedling or plant vigour.

Now we had our fair share of black germ and cold germ as low as 45% on 23 production seed. But our saving grace was that we had our best runners so to speak in the race with our highest cold germ seed in the ground under these arduous conditions. We're in a position to then wait for the green light to return to recommence planting uh on the sunnier side of spring when the soil temperatures as I mentioned were more likely to remain stable. I boast just over 1% replant on that asset on a near 3,800 hectares all planted mind you by very motley crew of CFM staff, contractors and anyone else unlucky enough to find themselves in the wrong place at the right time. Before I change gears and get into our prelim long staple trial results, in summary and again of the teaching of snake had a lie down using the QR code to its full potential along with a working knowledge of how we get these results and how they're intended to be interpreted, could guarantee to only make help make the best decisions for your businesses.

I have confidence in the changes Ian's mentioned that are coming through CSD in the work that Hannah and her team do in the lab to get us these figures.

So as mentioned I'll briefly touch on one of our variety trials that we grew this year. Now more than ever we're starting to see consumer demand drive production as it moves down the chain to the farm gate, particular in sustainability space. But something else we as a management team were exposed to this year was the request for particular yarn quality traits. But now it's ultimately requested by the spinners for the production of high quality yarns and thus garments generally speaking. Finer stronger cotton can be spun into a finer yarn count. These are more valuable. Finer yarn counts usually spun from pima cotton but with no pima cotton varieties commercially available in Australia, our aim is to grow the high quality upland cotton we do grow to the longest staple length possible.

Now environment and management can both affect quality and yield and fortunately most of the management factors implemented to maximize yield also maximize quality. Though mic varies year to year often influenced by environment, Australia fiber quality is regarded as some of the best in the world as we all know and our strength and length characteristics have also increased with recent breeding. But exceptional fiber quality characteristics uh can attract a demand and the potential to achieve additional premiums. So CSD provided us with approximately 9 hectares of an old germplasm that has a longer staple trait. We grew out grew it out next to what was 1049 and 3141, as well as 746. All varieties were treated the same and we knew from the start to to expect a lower yield from this long staple variety due to this trait trade-off. It did have distinct differences in crop in terms of crop phenology and its growth patterns, which we will uh look forward to manipulating in the future with management and timing. But overall this long staple variety had 16% lower yield, but was 6% longer in HVI length. The 746 was predominantly a 38 staple, the 1049 and 3141 was a 39 staple and this trial variety was a 41 to 42 staple. For context in 22-23 season, only 12% of Australian cotton was over 40 in length and was predominantly 38. We also had 16% lower micronaire which wasn't a surprise after seeing a really top crop heavy plant, and colder conditions in the south low mic's often common. But there's two ways you can get a low mic reading and we're still doing some testing in terms of cellulose density and the perimeters of these fibres to see whether we're going to achieve the high quality mature low mic reading or the low quality immature low mic reading. Uniformity was similar to both XtendFlex varieties and greater than the 746, and we saw a 7% increase in strength on average. Now while these may seem small it makes a big difference to the quality strength and softness of cotton. The longer the length the softer the feel making long staple cotton ideal for more high quality products. We're awaiting further spinning trial results also and I've thrown a few numbers at you but as I said it's in its preliminary stages and we're looking forward to exploring this uh further in the future, to potentially fill some market demands that may come our way and have potential to attract a premium associated. Thanks.