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I attended the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in Nashville, Tennessee USA from the 8th to 11th of January 2008. At the conference I presented a paper “Soil type effects on cotton plant water relations“ in the cotton agronomy and physiology conference.

After the presentation of the paper I talked with several American researchers about my past and current research and results. They were interested in the research outcomes and the experimental methods that I used.

Prior to and throughout the conference I had discussions with a number of cotton researchers including Dr Bobby McMichael (Lubbock, Texas), Dr John Burke (Lubbock, Texas) , Dr Dan Munk (Fresno, California), Dr Owen Gwathmey (Jackson, Tennessee), Dr Tom Cothren (Collage Station, Texas), Dr Craig Bednarz (Lubbock, Texas?) and Dr Derrick Oosterhuis (Fayetteville, Arkansas).

In particular my discussions with Dr’s McMichael and Burke relating to cotton root system development, variation in genetic potential, and methods for root measurement were useful. I have since had further contact with Dr McMichael and am hopeful that this will lead to future collaboration. Talks with Dan Munk into the techniques for stratifying soil moisture profiles were also useful in my current research, as he confirmed some of the techniques and tolerances that I have been using.

I also renewed contact with Dr Richard Percy whom I had met on a previous visit to the USA. Dr Percy has moved from his previous position in Maricopa Arizona to Texas A&M in Collage Station as a plant breeder and it was interesting to discuss with him changes in his plant breeding focus away from Pima varieties.

The poster session presented some interesting research, especially some work looking at the rates of photosynthesis recovery vs. stomatal conductance and transpiration over successive stress events. This paper also presented a novel graphical method for presenting the results which may be of use in delivering the results of some of my research – for either scientific papers or for extension.

During the conference I attended other sessions relating to industry development and breeding in addition to those on Agronomy and Physiology. In the production sessions there was a lot of discussion and useful information about the new breed of cotton pickers that self module on the move which are being produced by both Case-IH and John Deere. There is a lot of clarification of some of the issues involved with these systems, especially relating to wrapping contamination in the gin and also the potential for soil compaction due to the weight of these machines.