Tipperary Station clocks 600,000km trucking cotton to gin this season

"180 triple road trains over 3500km - that's about 15 times around the equator. It equates to a lot of cash being put on the back of a truck," manager Bruce Connolly recently told the Australian Cotton Conference.

The cattle and cropping property at Adelaide River just finished harvesting its fourth and biggest cotton crop at 3000 hectares.

Tipperary started its cotton journey with a 60ha sowing in 2018-19, moving to 300ha the following season, and 1500ha in 2020-21.

That tyranny of distance will soon be a thing of the past when the NT's first gin comes online next year at Tarwoo Station, near Katherine.

"I'm holding back 100 modules to put through for the commissioning of the gin and we look like being able to switch it on July 1 next year," Mr Connolly said.

But with one solution comes another problem - getting the product exported for a reasonable price.

"We currently have 200,000 cotton lint-processed bales worth of empty space being exported from Darwin as empty containers," Mr Connolly said.

"The price of containers going out of Darwin is about $4000 as opposed to Brisbane at about $1800.

"It makes sense if we're producing up there to get it out through the Port of Darwin and we are doing some work in the background on that."

Ord River District Cooperative chair Fritz Bolten shares Mr Connolly's problem of having to truck cotton to Queensland.

"We truck our cotton east to Dalby to get ginned, spending well over $1000 a hectare. It's certainly not where we want to be, or can be," Mr Bolten said.

However, with production growing in the Ord, there's enough scale to build a gin.

The WA government recently signing a lease to enable a local consortium to establish a cotton gin in Kununurra.

The lease with Kimberley Cotton Company will see a high-tech cotton processing facility and associated storage infrastructure constructed on a 79.4ha site.

Land tenure enables the KCC to progress local government planning approvals with the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley, moving closer to an anticipated commencement of cotton processing in 2025.

The government has provided $4 million to upgrade electricity, supply infrastructure and undertake necessary approvals.

The gin will be serviced by a 100 per cent renewable power using hydroelectricity.

KCC is comprised of a consortium of local growers, investors and Traditional Owners, the Miriuwung Gajerrong Corporation.

Mr Connolly, who is also of the Northern Cotton Growers Association, said aside from ginning and transport, there were still plenty of "logistical nightmares" to contend with.

"We want to use bulk fertiliser, but if we bring bulk up there under that kind of humid environment, we'll finish up with thousands of tonnes of solid blocks of fertiliser. So currently, we're using bulk bags."

With annual rainfall averaging 1500mm, the property can be landlocked during the wet season.

That means in order to get plant operators to and from the machinery, they have to be flown in and out in helicopters, morning and night.

And because there's such a tight window to get crop in the ground, they plant 24 hours a day, rain hail or shine.

"Planting during the rain - I get a lot of crossed eyes and raised eyebrows when I say that," Mr Connolly said.

"It can be hosing down. You can have two or three inches of rain in the shift and you haven't stopped.

"The only reason we will stop is because the tractor slides offline on a greasy hill or something like that. We have to get it in on time."

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