The Cotton Centre is to close at the end od this month

Lack of rain is another cause of the rivers being dry ;)

This lack of rain is the major cause of lack of water. The majority of the country is in drought which does not produce any water.
The lack of rain has seen the demise of towns like Warren. I was saddened to see a once vibrant town now in serious decline. This is the case of many towns such as Walgett and Bourke.
The rural country is in trouble which reflects on the national economy. Buying of water is only further decimating rural communities, eg., Bourke.
Almost flood rain will help turn these communities around for a while.
No one can blame cotton entirely. The rice industry is decimated in Australia. Mining is also a very big user of water.
Bring on the big rains!
DW

DW,

If it doesn't rain soon, I think there will be a lot more towns go under.

QLD Rail plan to close the railway line that goes through Thallon and Dirranbandi as they claim it is too costly to maintain.

This will cause Thallon to become a ghost town as they depend on the rail to freight Grain as this is a major grain collection depot for the region. Dirranbandi will continue to die off as it has done during the drought as the irrigators have no water, and the non irrigators also need the rain for the crops to grow, with out the rail there to support the local freight what hope have they got, other than rely on additional road freight.

I am sure the lack of rain is causing issues throughout the SW QLD and the W NSW areas.

Cheers Kev

I agree about the lack of rain and the rivers but the amount of water to produce Cotton compared to traditional crops is many times more. Cotton is dependant on many more pesticides as well.. its something we could do without. The Chinese have plenty of water and dont care much about their land.. Let them grom more of the stuff, and save our water for traditional crops and dwindling outback towns... Michael

IMO most of the trouble is lack of planning and investment in infrastructure caused by the over influence of city based people who could not give a rats about country people as long as they're cosy in their city office.
If rail transport is based on making a profit than how come they have not closed city trains.
All based on votes.
NSW stands for Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong and that's it.

Honky

Michael, cotton can be successfully grown by dryland or rain grown. I did it successfully for some years. I retired from farming in 1996 when cotton was around $600 per bale. It was the most successful crop I grew. All with only 3 sprays. New varieties have consistently lowered the chemical need. Rain is the main ingredient.

Honky, I totally agree with your comments. They have forgotten where food comes from. As Michael suggested, we can get it and cotton from China!
DW

I dont agree with cotton farming but I assume the cotton centre is some kind of interpretive site?

i see nothing wrong with it same as the whaling centre at albany

Flynnie

I hope you noticed that I didn't say it was closed forever, and that I was going into Walgett Shire Council to get the story from the horses mouth.

However, you may have supplied a lot of the answer. I now presume that the holding ponds are there to prevent the hot water from going straight out to the paddocks like it use to.

Anyway, I will find out today.

Sorry Boo Boo I was not having a go at you. My comment about "epinions" and lack of fact was made in response to some of the posts that just attacked the cotton industry and added little to the content of the thread.

I tend to write in a bit of a "cranky" style. I learnt about that on kenrockwell.com. Maybe with practise I will write posts in a more easy going style.

We would have passed close to each other on Saturday morning, I think, as I left Burren for Narrabri. I noticed campers still at the bore. I had camped on the other side of Burren.

Some years back the bores came very closed to being closed and it took a lot of creativity to keep the one at Burren Junction and the ones at Moree open.

Flynnie

We were there at about 9 am. We had not been there for a lot of years and could not believe the changes.

My wife is working at Walgett at the moment so we are not towing anything.

We leave for Canberra on Thursday.

And no I didn't get upset with your post. I had a feeling it was in reference to the comments on cotton. If the cotton centre is accurate cotton uses a little less water than some of our more common crops. The pesticide useage also appears to have been reduced considerably.