QUEENSLAND, Australia — March 5, 2020 — Cubbie Station, a subsidiary of Ruyi Group, has reached its highest water level, bringing abundant water to the cotton planting season from 2020 to 2021. Cotton is expected to usher in a bumper harvest.
Cubbie Station in Queensland is Australia’s largest irrigated cotton farm. It has suffered a severe drought in recent years. The successive droughts have broken the balance of the local ecosystems and resulted in massive pressure on agricultural production.
Cubbie Station owns three cotton fields near St. George and Dirranbandi in southwestern Queensland. Its total area is 93,700 hectares, including 22,100 hectares of irrigated land. According to the data last month, the rainfall of the Dirranbandi cotton field reaches to 72 millimeters, and the highest rainfall of St. George is over 132 millimeters. A recent satellite image showed that Cubbie Station has diverted water from the Culgoa River and filled a 2000-meter-long reservoir. Rains provide more than 170 billion liters of water for the next cotton season.
Cubbie Station is the largest producer of cotton in the southern hemisphere and the world’s largest producer of agricultural irrigation. It can produce in excess of 330,000 bales of cotton and other agriculture including wheat, sorghum, sunflowers, barley, chickpeas and corn in a full production year. 15,000 hectares of cotton will be grown from 2020 to 2021, which reaches to 70 percent of the total output. Another crop of wheat is likely to be planted this winter, with an expected yield of 8,000 hectares. The saturated rainwater is expected to meet the water demand for cotton planting in the next three years.
As the source of the textile industry, cotton is the key to long-term development of textile enterprises. Since acquiring Cubbie Station for 300 million Australian dollars (2 billion renimbi) in 2013, Ruyi Group has combined advanced modern planting technology to improve planting levels and expand the cotton industry chain. Ruyi has invested more than US$26 million to maintain and improve the operating efficiency of Cubbie and another US$25 million to acquire and upgrade the ginning in Dirranbandi. Cubbie has achieved bumper harvests for three consecutive years since the acquisition, and it has become an important profit growth source for Ruyi Group in Australian cotton production and export pricing.
Posted March 18, 2020
Source: Ruyi Group