According to the CSIRO, the web-based tools will help promote and support the adoption of best-practice in cotton crop management by providing farmers with access to the latest research findings.

The research project’s team leader, CSIRO Plant Industry’s Dr Michael Bange, says CottASSIST includes all previously available tools, but has more features and is more user-friendly.

"Cotton managers monitoring their crops can utilise CottASSIST to assess their crop progress and to assist with complex decision making so that crops are grown efficiently," he says.

CSIRO's CottASSIST software developer, Loretta Clancy, says the site has been significantly upgraded to improve its functionality and security.

"It is easier to maintain and allows us to incorporate features we were not able to include with the old website, such as sharing information across tools," she says.

"It will also allow us to develop new tools more easily and more rapidly in the future.

"The current online registration of the CSIRO/Cotton CRC web tools is 418 users and in the last cotton season 113 crops across the industry were monitored using the crop development tool.

"We expect the upgrading of the program will attract even more users."

CottASSIST was developed by CSIRO and the Cotton Catchment Communities Cooperative Research Centre (Cotton CRC) in Narrabri. The Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) also supported the project.