The cotton industry is forecasting the 2017 crop will be the second-largest on record, with favourable conditions, solid prices and a wider planting window attracting new growers to the fibre.
Cotton Australia chief executive Adam Kay said the season was set to be a bumper one.
"This season the national crop looks like it's about 460,000 hectares, so probably the second biggest-crop that we've ever seen planted in Australia," he said.
"Monsanto has shared with us that they've had about 240 new growers or returning growers who've had a significant break, so there's quite a few."
Mr Kay said while the wider planting window this season had made the crop more attractive, it was not the only drawcard.
"I think it's the fact that we've had a wetter spring, so there's water in a lot of the major water storages, and the price of cotton is good," he said.
Diversity the reason for giving cotton a go
One of the new growers is Mick Guse, from Wondai in the South Burnett region of Queensland.
His family has been farming in the district for four generations, and he has taken the big step from cereals into cotton for the first time.
Mr Guse said the family had tried lots of things in the past, but never cotton.
"Because we are dryland, sorghum was our mainstay [plus] wheat and barley … we also used to grow peanuts years ago," he said.
Mr Guse said the decision to try cotton came down to a desire to be diverse.
"We are a new generation of farmers and we're trying to make everything pay … it is about the lifestyle, but you've got to be sustainable," he said.
"The price of grain has [now] dropped significantly and we saw the cotton price was good, so we thought we'd give it a go.
"We've got to have other options up our sleeve. We can't just be dictated to by the market and just keep growing one product when the price is lousy.
"We've got to take control of our own destiny."
Advice valuable for first-time grower
As a first-time cotton farmer, Mr Guse has relied on advice from other growers and consultants such as agronomists.
"It's just about doing your research. We've had to get a really good team on board," he said.
"It's hard because I don't know a lot about it [growing cotton], so I'm asking lots of questions.
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"But it's flowering and it's about a foot high, so hopefully we just get some rain now and it comes through."
While he cannot know how the season will pan out, Mr Guse said he was committed to trying cotton over a few more years.
"I'm going to do it for the next three seasons if the price holds up because it's like every crop — you can't just do a one-season trial and think that's going to be it.
"You've got to do it over different rainfall events, different years, and just keep going with it to see how it works."
