The school’s year 12 agriculture students have been helping to grow the GM cotton since December, and it will be monitored over the next three weeks as part of several experiments.

The GM cotton, also known as Bollgard II, contains proteins that make the cotton toxic to caterpillars if they aren’t eaten.

Agriculture teacher Jill Kuchel said the cotton has been a way for the students to learn about genetic engineering first hand.

“The big benefit has been that instead of just talking about genetic engineering, they can see it in action,” she said.

As part of the experiment, caterpillars will be released onto the GM cotton and monitored through a time-lapse camera.

The caterpillars will also be released onto normal cotton as well as another type of GM cotton, which is resistant to weed killers such as Round Up.

“The students will be able to see that the caterpillar will be able to survive and thrive on the normal cotton and the [Round Up resistant] cotton, but the toxic protein in the GM cotton will kill them,” Mrs Kuchel said.

While four other schools have grown GM cotton as part of their studies, all of them have been in Queensland.

Mrs Kuchel said the GM cotton was first introduced to Australia in 2004 and has already had an enormous benefit for cotton farmers.

“The caterpillar is so destructive, and to control it, farmers have to use pesticides and spray the cotton 10 times a season over a six-month period,” she said.

“At the moment, [the GM cotton] has reduced pesticide spraying by 80 per cent, which is a massive saving.”

Agriculture student Georgia Horne said while similar experiments have been carried out at the school, this has been the first time genetically modified plants have been used.

“We’ve been monitoring it since the holidays, and it’s going to be pretty interesting from here on,” she said.

Other students have been helping out in the project as well, including senior biology students and junior agriculture classes.

“We’ve also had the maths department helping to work out the surface area of the leaves [for the experiment],” Mrs Kuchel said. “There’s been quite a few students involved.”

The agriculture teacher said the next couple of weeks should prove to be interesting for her agriculture students, as the caterpillars are monitored as part of the experiment. “This will be the really exciting part because we’re now past the growing stage and are able to see all the bulbs,” Mrs Kulchel said.