A huge congratulations to two AACS members who won their respective categories at the Australian Cotton Conference Awards Dinner on 8 August:

Dr Lisa Bird (NSW DPI) was awarded the Cotton Seed Distributors Researcher of the Year.
Lisa plays an essential role in the cotton industry’s surveillance for insecticide resistance, testing aphids, helicoverpa, mirids, mites, and thrips, with her results incorporated into cotton’s Insecticide Resistance Management Strategy (IRMS) each year.

Sharna Holman (DAF Queensland) was awarded the CRDC Chris Lehmann Young Cotton Achiever of the Year.
Sharna is the Biosecurity Tech Lead for CottonInfo, who is also currently completing a CRDC-supported PhD focusing on the pest status of cluster caterpillar in northern Australia.

See the Cotton Australia media release for official photographs.

With a hiatus in our research conference program, AACS has encouraged researchers to present their amazing work at lunchtime seminar sessions.

The presentations are recorded and made available on our Seminar Series page.

As part of our commitment to the promotion of Australian Cotton Science, the AACS is embarking on a social media journey, starting with Twitter but with possible expansion to other platforms.

The aim of the Association engaging in the Twittersphere is to provide an additional platform to:

1. Promote our members and their research; 
2. Facilitate communication between our members, further encouraging cross-agency and cross-discipline collaboration;
3. Allow members to further engage in international cotton science; and
4. Promote events co-ordinated by the AACS or relevant to AACS members.

Our twitter handle is @AusCottonSci, and use the hashtag #AACS in tweets that you’d like the AACS to interact with.

Given the postponement of the Gold Coast Australian Cotton Industry Conference which is now scheduled for August 2021, we considered it prudent to delay our next event until the following year. Cotton Australia have confirmed that the industry conference will continue every second year from the delayed date (2021, 2023 etc.). The AACS conference will therefore follow suit with our events now occurring in 2022, 2024 etc.

More information will be available closer to the event.