More than 50 percent of cotton sitting in the hot Central Queensland sun at Emerald’s Queensland Cotton Gin is wrapped by plastic in a cylinder shape, similar to a round hay bale.

From the standard module covered with a tarp that lasts 20 years, the new storing system is heaving with costs.

Each plastic sheet that protects the round module costs $5 and the gin’s moon buggy has been modified to stop round modules of cotton from being contaminated with plastic when the machine picks up the bale shredding the yellow protector.

Costs and transformation of old technology there may be, but the new system is proving popular in the Emerald growing district, Queensland Cotton’s Alistair Mace says.

“The Emerald area has had a unique uptake of the technology because major contractors have taken up the new picker,” Mr Mace said.

“There are so many more pickers here.”

Mr Mace also says some cotton farmers have overlooked how fast and efficiently they can now pick cotton with the round module picker which picks 60 hectares a day – double what a standard cotton picker can do.

“There is a heap of value in that because you don’t have to worry about rain events,” Mr Mace said, which has proved problematic for numerous crops around Emerald over the years.

What used to demand four or five people to build a standard module now takes one – the driver – and limits fatalities from old cotton machinery, which in recent years has cost a life a year.

Cotton will also pass through gins faster, with radio frequency identification chips placed in each bale.

The one problem with the new plastic wrapping is plastic needs to be removed without contaminating the cotton, Mr Mace says.

Apart from restructuring the gin’s technology to stave off contamination, the gin is continuing to see a world of firsts with the second crop of cotton from Bowen currently in store.

“There have been great growing conditions there after the rain season,” Mr Mace said.

“Anywhere else the cotton would be dead.”

Mr Mace says contractors are forecasting a potential 80,000 bales of round module picked cotton this season.

Cotton crops will be planted towards the end of the month.