Growers are using the 'whatever it takes' playbook to get cotton seed in the ground this year, as the planting window closes for the year.
For most farmers based in the New South Wales town of Mungindi, the annual cotton planting doesn't usually involve a boat.
But local grower Sam Heagney recently found himself ferrying cotton seed across flooded paddocks in a tinny, 650 kilometres from the nearest coastline.
"We've been completely cut off by floodwaters here for the past 10 days," Mr Heagney said.
"We flew someone in to get started on the cotton planting, but then we ran out of seed for them."
The problem? The seed was stored on the other side of the flooded Gil Gil Creek.
"I just had to get it over [to the planter] somehow, so I looked around and the tinny turned out to be the best option," Mr Heagney said.
After 10 trips, with six bags of seed loaded up in the small boat at a time, Mr Heagney had the route down to a fine art — and planting was back underway.
Above average crop expected
Last year Australian growers produced 5.5 million bales — a national record.
To put that in perspective, less than 590 thousand bales were grown across the country in the droughted 2020 season.
Cotton Australia general manager Michael Murray said the wet weather would prevent another record crop.
Growers can't plant when the ground is too wet and they have a limited window to plant in.
"It will certainly go down as one of those more challenging years," he said.
"We're still relatively confident that we'll have a well above average crop."
A third of 2023 crop sold already
In Central Queensland, cotton growers are anticipating a bumper crop thanks to the recent rainfall.
Fairbairn dam is now sitting at 38 per cent, the highest it's been in years.
Around 8,000 hectares of cotton has already been put in the ground in the Central Highlands.
According to Emerald grower Aaron Kiely, planting is about half way through.
"It will be a bigger crop this year," he said.
Two years ago Mr Kiely didn't put any cotton in at his property and now he's going to have a full farm.
He said it's been great to see inflows coming into Fairbairn Dam.
"It's good to see it up over that 35 per cent – it's the first time in a while," he said.
"It gives you a bit of confidence going forward."
The loss of the Chinese market two years ago hasn't slowed the industry down either.
Almost all of the 2022 crop has been sold and more than a third of the 2023 crop has been forward sold, according to Cotton Australia.
Mr Murray said even with difficulties this season there was an overarching positivity in the industry.
"There's that old saying that you can make money from mud, you can't make it from dust," he said.
"Our hearts go out the those growers that have actually suffered physical infrastructure damage from the floods, but on the whole there's positivity in this."
