Monsanto Grower of the Year and AgriRisk High Achiever of the Year 

Daisy Lodge/Kulki

Daisy Lodge Pty Ltd
Peter and Caroline Touhey
Carathool, NSW
Peter and Caroline own and manage just under 5,500 hectares of land in the Carathool region NSW.  They are presently in a 4 year development period, focusing their management on maintaining cotton yields without having to continually increase inputs.  Peter is instrumental in the new Rivcott gin, demonstrating his belief in a strong future for the cotton industry in the Southern Valleys.

Lakeland Downs

Bengerang

Jason Sinclair
Condamine, Queensland
Jason manages 1,055 hectares of cropping country utilising 3,800 ML of River allocation, near Condamine, for Australia Food and Fibre.  This cotton season, Jason produced an incredible average yield of 16.6 bales per hectare, with a long term average of more than 14 bales.  He puts this down to his meticulous policy of never allowing the plant to stress due to a lack of water, nutrition or light and the results speak for themselves.

Kuranda
Jedbrugh Farming
Scott and Jo McCalman
Gunnedah, NSW
Scott and Jo’s 250 hectares of dryland cotton near Gunnedah received no in-season rainfall last season and yielded 3 bales per hectare, down from an average of around 5.5.  Having previously farmed large scale near Warren, they are now enjoying the ability to be hands-on in every aspect of the smaller scale business.  Scott’s passion is for soil biology and he has had very pleasing results using liquid fertilisers produced in his own batching plant.

Turkey Lagoon
Graham & Kylie Cooke
Boggabilla, NSW
Graham and Kylie Cooke have a 1,850 hectare family farming operation near Boggabilla, NSW.  This year their cotton harvest was 109 hectares but a testament to their water use efficiency, they secured a handy yield of 13-14 bales per hectare.  Graham has been a pioneer of using bankless irrigation systems for cotton and is passionate about the effective use of irrigation water.  Their farm, Turkey Lagoon is a showcase of lateral, furrow and bankless irrigation systems that are to an industry best practice standard.

 Korolea

Korolea Farming Pty Ltd
Andrew and Rob Newell
Boggabilla, NSW
Father and son team, Rob and Andrew Newell grew 673 hectares of siphon irrigated cotton near Boggabilla this year, down from previous years due to river water availability.  They managed a pleasing 13.5 bale average yield this year and have recently achieved MyBMP Certification.  The Newell’s participate in a range of on-farm research trials and use this information to constantly seek improvements for their business. 

Worral Creek

Reardon Operations

Tristram Hertslet and Robert & Jennie Reardon

Talwood, Qld
Reardon Operations has been farming since 1969 and now boasts a portfolio of five properties in the Macintyre Valley.  In total the business owns in excess of 25,000 hectares including 3 centre pivots, 4 laterals, bankless fields and siphon irrigated cotton, that is all MyBMP Certified.  They also undertake dryland farming, grazing and operate a licensed feedlot.