AS prices hover around $500/bale and the southern oscillation index points to a potential La Nina year, Central Queensland growers are seriously considering a return to dryland cotton this coming summer.

Brendon Swaffer, who farms Bungarra north of Clermont, only missed four seasons of dryland cotton in the 15 years from 1987 to 2002.

But successive poor prices and drought convinced him each year since then to not use it as a summer option.

However following good rain earlier this month and the cotton price hovering around $500/bale, Mr Swaffer is considering giving it another go.

"We will still need 150mm to give cotton a go and we will need that price to be around $500/bale," he said.

"At $450/bale, it doesn't stack up."

Mr Swaffer farms close to 3200ha of dryland grain country at Wolfang and even though prices have been poor, good yields have ensured that sorghum is still his main crop.

For the past three seasons Mr Swaffer has been able to pull off record crops, and his sorghum - mainly Buster with a little bit of MR-32 - is harvesting a huge 3.2t/ha.

Mr Swaffer said depending on what rain he received before planting, he would look to put about 400ha of dryland cotton in during summer, but had not considered a variety yet.

In past seasons he has planted up to 800ha of cotton.

Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD) extension agronomist David Kelly said there had been widespread enthusiasm from farmers across Central Queensland on the potential of dryland cotton this coming summer.

Because of the interest, and given how long since large numbers of growers have considered dryland sorghum, CSD held a series of workshops across the region last week.

Mr Kelly said the good winter rains, currently high prices and relatively low return for grain crops had made the fibre crop look particularly attractive.

"At reasonable yield levels, 3.5 or four bales per hectare, the return for cotton will be better than any other summer crop and due to the technologies available now, there is much less risk than people will remember," Mr Kelly said.

Mr Kelly said during the 1980s and '90s cotton was a common sight across the Central Queensland landscape, but fell out of favour due to tough seasons and insecticide resistance impacting on costs and yields.

But he said with the improvements in genetics and better understanding of dryland cotton agronomy, the likelihood of a repeat of these problems was getting less and less.

"By using the Bollgard II and Roundup Ready Flex technology, you know how much you are going to spend on weed and insect control for the year before you even plant," Mr Kelly said.

"Growers using these technologies have told us it makes cotton as simple as, or even simpler to grow than sorghum.

"This year Monsanto have introduced an End Point Royalty scheme for paying for these technologies - you pay by how much you yield and you don't have to part with it until you've had your cotton ginned.

"The varieties we are growing now are also head and shoulders above those people would have been growing during the 1990s - particularly in regards to yield and staple length - two very important things for dryland growers.

"What's also improved in that time is the understanding of what you need to do to prepare a paddock for a cotton crop - making sure you have a full profile, a good cover of stubble and the right soil type in particular."

Queensland Cotton Emerald-based marketing services officer Rick Jones said worldwide conditions like the flooding in India and the still-to-be-determined Northern Hemisphere crop size meant the prices were likely to hover around $500/bale.

"The supply and demand situation looks like it's going to stay tight for a little while," Mr Jones said.

"The dollar's going to be the other thing that will determine where we end up. It is looking as strong as it has for a number of years. At the moment demand looks good and the supply situation's got a few question marks.

"There's definitely guys looking at (dryland cotton), once the price gets to around that $500/bale it's very attractive. It's going to come down to price and whether we can get the rain in that October-November period."