Rain at the wrong time looks like taking the gloss off what could have been a good season for Emerald cotton grower Rob Ingram.

"We're probably going to average somewhere between 10 and 11 bales and we're going to have major discounts on it," he said.

"There's just not a lot of money in it at those yields and the discounts we're going to receive."

Mr Ingram and his wife Danni farm at Avondale, a 550 hectare irrigation property west of Emerald, in the central highlands of Queensland.

They produce winter crops of wheat or chickpeas and summer crops of cotton or mungbeans.

Soils at Avondale are mostly heavy black cracking clay with some of what Mr Ingram refers to as "scrub soil".

Mr Ingram's parents, Bob and Anne, bought Avondale in 1978 and it was one of the first farms in the area connected to the Selma channel system, allowing them to start growing irrigated cotton in the 1980s.

Mr Ingram returned to work with his father on the farm in 1995 and he and Danni took it over after Bob died 11 years ago.

In the past Mr Ingram has grown summer crops of irrigated corn, but the impact of fall armyworm has made it uneconomical to continue.

"We've grown mungbeans before, but cotton is predominantly it," he said.

"If we've got water in (Fairbairn) dam, we grow cotton. It's a challenging crop to grow - as soon as you think you've got the crop sorted out, it bites you in the bum - but cotton's a very forward-thinking industry.

"It's a good industry to be involved in and really, at the end of the day, for us in the irrigation area it's the only crop we can grow where we can make a bit of money."

Preparation for this year's cotton crop began in early August with application of 200 units of nitrogen, 80 units of potassium and 50 units of phosphorous which was incorporated as hills were pulled up on the flood irrigated portion.

After 80mm of rain mid-month, Mr Ingram decided to plant earlier than usual to take advantage of soil moisture, given the irrigation season opened in July with medium security allocations of 30 per cent plus carryover.

Using a John Deere Max Emerge planter, he planted 500ha of Sicot 748B3F at 16 seeds to the metre on 1m row spacings over a 10-day period in late August.

"We got a good strike, but had to water it early, which potentially has affected its yield," he said.

The crop was side dressed with 150 units of nitrogen in September and October, followed by applications of plant growth regulator in November and December to manage crop height and allow the cotton to grow on.

Aided by good numbers of beneficial insects, pest pressure from mirids and green vegetable bugs remained low, and there was little damage from silverleaf white fly or mealy bugs.

Two in-crop sprays of glyphosate were enough to manage weeds such as bell vine, ketmia, rattlepod and sesbania.

Unfortunately, the bolls had begun opening when the crop experienced about 92mm of rain over five days in early February followed by another 100mm across 14 days in late March.

"Our boll numbers were fantastic and we were expecting a pretty good yield until this rain came in," he said.

"Our boll numbers dropped between 50 and 60 bolls a metre on what we had before the rain events ... they just rotted away to nothing or weren't pickable."

Crops at Avondale are irrigated using either a siphon and flood furrow irrigation system or centre pivot irrigators which cover an area of 170ha on the undulating portion.

Water is sourced from Fairbairn Dam and delivered by the Selma channel.

The cotton consumed about 8 megalitres per hectare of water across 10 irrigations.

Picking started on May 11 and finished 18 days later just ahead of 21mm of rain.

"I haven't had any classing come back yet, but I know it's not going to be good," Mr Ingram said.

"Hopefully, it is only colour, and hopefully there's no length, strength or micronaire issues. But what I understand from other growers, there's been a multitude of downgrades - between $50 and $150 a bale off."

Cotton modules will be sent to Queensland Cotton at Emerald for processing.

Mr Ingram said he was considering changing varieties next season.

"I had a pretty good result out of the 748 last year, but this year it probably wasn't one of the better varieties to grow, to be honest," he said.

"It's just come down to the season. Next year, we'll maybe look at some 606, which seemed to yield quite well up here this year, and look at the data on some of the XtendFlex varieties."

There is some doubt over water availability for next season's summer crops, with Fairbairn Dam at 23pc capacity, and irrigators starting at zero allocation on July 1.

Mr Ingram said the dam reached 46pc two years ago, its highest level since 2013, but there had been little run off rain in the catchment since.

"It was one of the safest systems in Queensland," he said.

"It's just going through a period at the moment where we're struggling to get our full allocation every year. It feels like every dam in Queensland is full except for the Fairbairn Dam ... it is what it is."

This article appeared in Queensland Country Life