Sustainability in any farming system is dependent upon a number of interacting factors which include climate, soil quality, plant nutrition, management, weed and disease incidence, and economic factors.

Endosulfan has proved to be a cheap and efficacious insecticide. It provides ongoing value in the protection of conventional and transgenic cotton crops against Heliothis and other Insect pests.

Cotton crops in Australia are visited by a wide range of beneficial insects. These include generalist predators and specialist parasitoids which attack key pests.

The application of cotton defoliants has on occasions been observed to effect the growth of native trees.

Limited genetic variation in cotton has presented a significant challenge for the isolation of DNA markers linked with valuable traits such as resistance to Verticillium wilt and Fusarium wilt.