With a dozen growers producing about 850 hectares this year, defoliation is expected to commence in coming weeks, with the pickers to begin rolling from mid-June onwards.

The DPI&F's Paul Grundy is one of the leaders of the project, after a recent move to Ayr from Biloela as part of a three-year Cotton Catchments Communities and QDPI&F funded project.

With extensive trials at the local research station and on farm, he and those like him are hopeful that the crop has a long-term future and that eventually a gin will be built.

His current trials are assessing four different planting dates by five different varieties, in a bid to ascertain the impacts of the wet season, which usually occurs in January and February.

Climate variability is the biggest challenge in the north; but in an inverse way to the south. Too much water and cloud cover is their problem.

This year was a case in point, with 42 rainy days in January and February before the sunshine finally returned in March.

Dr Grundy said a redeeming thing about this season was that it was a good test for the scenario of a wetter than average season (barring an even longer wet or a cyclone) and that the data would help them ascertain likely minimum yield potential.

That way, the growers will be better able to forward sell a portion of their crop with confidence.

"Growers are attracted to forward marketing and being able to better manage sale price, but until now they have been more concerned with actually growing the crop than marketing it," Dr Grundy said.

"Probably nine of the 12 growers hadn't grown cotton before, so they were thinking about planting dates and varieties first, so unfortunately this season will see a lot of the cotton sold at prices below the peaks seen earlier this season."

* Extract from a full report to appear in Australian Cotton Outlook, out June 12.