Jason Sinclair manages Woodlands and Lakeland Downs near Condamine, on the western Darling Downs, for Nigel and Vanessa Corish under the New Leaf Ag banner. Pictures supplied

After an above average crop the previous year, and with "bugger all water", Jason Sinclair wasn't expecting a lot from the 164 hectares of cotton planted last October.

But he was pleasantly surprised on three fronts: the 64 hectare field of irrigated cotton was judged the overall winner in the annual FastStart Cotton Establishment Awards, yielded more than 13 bales per hectare from five waterings, and the 100ha of dryland cotton looks like averaging four bales per hectare.

Mr Sinclair manages Woodlands and Lakeland Downs near Condamine, on the western Darling Downs, for Nigel and Vanessa Corish under the New Leaf Ag banner.

He's no stranger to producing award-winning crops, claiming the Greg McVeigh Memorial Trophy for Outstanding Yield in the 2017-18 Darling Downs Cotton Growers Association (DDCGA) awards, when the irrigated crop produced 16.46 bales per hectare.

In 2018 and 2019, they won the John Grellman Shield for the Highest Yielding Irrigated Crop in a CSD Variety Trial, Highest Irrigated Yield of 17.32 bales per hectare in 2019.

And in 2022 they won the DDCGA Highest Farm Yield Average for Irrigation with an average yield of 15.1 bales per hectare, and last year again won the John Grellman award with a crop that yielded 19.79 bales per hectare.

Jason  Sinclair has grown many award-winning crops at Lakeland Downs since New Leaf Ag took on the property in 2017, including the 2022-2023 John Grellman award for the Highest Yielding Irrigated Crop in a CSD Variety Trial, with a crop that yielded 19.79 bales per hectare.

Across the two New Leaf Ag farms they produce about 4000ha of dryland crops on a five-year rotation of wheat, chickpeas, barley, sorghum and cotton.

Another 450ha is set up for irrigated cropping, used mostly for cotton on a "one in, one out" basis, with half cropped and the other half rested each year.

The preferred varieties are Sicot 606B3F and Sicot 748B3F. Cotton modules are sent to Louis Dreyfus Cotton, Dalby, for ginning.

"The 606 has always performed well for us in our country and, until something changes, all our irrigated cotton will be 606," he said.

"The 748 was a bit of leftover seed that we were going to throw out but we had a couple of paddocks that had been deep ripped and we put 25 tonnes per hectare of cow manure on them from Lilyvale feedlot.

"I thought we may as well throw the seed in the paddock, and we got a few bales out of it."

Mr Sinclair, who has been growing cotton since 2000 when he started working for Mr Corish's father Peter at Yambocully, Goondiwindi, attributed the FastStart award to a combination of good luck and good management.

As members of the Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD) Ambassador Network Program, they often host trials on behalf of CSD and Mr Sinclair said they were persuaded to enter their only irrigated paddock in the awards.

"I like to get our country ready early," he said.

"We never chase moisture at planting time because we've tried that before and it's a waste of time. If there's moisture two inches under the hill, we'll just plant it as shallow as we can and flush it up to get the best result.

"If everything's lining up and we've got a nice fine week or 10 days in front of us, we get into it. When the weather's good, we can get it out of the ground within four or five days, no worries at all."

Preparation for the 2023-24 irrigated cotton crop at Lakeland Downs began with mulching and root cutting soon after the previous year's crop was picked.

Soil tests were used to confirm nitrogen levels and about 300kg/ha of Cotton Sustain was applied as starter fertiliser.

After two passes with a 4m GCA bar and Tilco Sidebuster, the hills were pulled back up and the paddock left fallow.

There was sufficient water in store for a smaller next crop, so urea was spread at 300kg per hectare in July and incorporated with an 8m Lely rotary hoe.

Planting was completed in mid-October, with the cotton seed sown at 14 seeds per metre on 1m row spacings using an 8m John Deere MaxEmerge planter. Lorsban was furrow injected to guard against false cutworm damage to seedlings.

"You always get that bit of a hot spell in September and everyone gets a bit excited," Mr Sinclair said.

"But we usually try and kick off at the 15th, watering it up about the 20th of October, then by that last week it's getting out of the ground and it's warmed up nicely and it can get going."

Picking Sicot 606B3F cotton at Lakeland Downs, near Condamine, Queensland.

The dryland cotton was double skip planted on December 6 - about a week after 100mm of rain was recorded - into two blocks that had been lasered.

Average annual rainfall is about 550mm, but a dry winter left them with 300 megalitres of water - after losing 200 megalitres to evaporation - which was only enough for 64 hectares.

Fortunately, there were a few storms at the right times and they picked up some tail water.

Crops are irrigated using a siphon and flood furrow irrigation system that draws from water stored in two ring tanks and two nearby natural lagoon systems that fill when the Condamine River floods.

"We had a bit of heat this year and we had to stretch our water out," he said.

"Usually we water on a 50mm deficit but this year we pushed it out to 75mm, just to keep the crop under control a bit ... And then we had a little river flow that helped us get there."

Apart from a minor outbreak of silverleaf whitefly towards the end of the season, Mr Sinclair said pest and disease pressure was average, and the Weed-It they bought four years ago was helping them get on top of problem weeds, such as fleabane and feathertop Rhodes grass.

Not long before picking, 110mm of rain was recorded in one night in late March and with another 100mm in the forecast, it was a race to get the irrigated crop off.

Then the river started flowing.

With about 4000 megalitres of water now in storage, Mr Sinclair said they planned to grow 320 hectares of irrigated cotton next season.

This article appeared in Australian Cotton & Grains Outlook