Ellangowan sorghum holds on

Mr Lack planted 200 hectares of sorghum on his 430ha property Hunsingore, Ellangowan, south-west of Toowoomba, across three plantings on November 19, November 26-27 and December 1.

The early plant sorghum received three small falls of rain, helping the crop to get its roots down to the bank of subsoil moisture.

Although the final round of planting took place after a small shower, the moisture quickly dissipated.

Mr Lack described the final planting as one of the worst he has ever seen, with only parts of the crop coming up.

"The earlier stuff got a little bit of rain on top of it to keep it going," he said.

"I'm surprised what did come up in the final planting, especially when we knew the moisture was gone by the next day.

"Considering the heat we had recently, I think the crop is looking okay."

This year's sorghum is mainly Pacific Seeds MR-Buster, with other plantings of MR-Scorpio and MR-Taurus.

"We've planted MR-Buster every year since it has come out - that's our standby," he said.

"Last year we put in a bit of MR-Taurus but it didn't get a proper trial because it got a flood over the top of it."

Mr Lack said they were often involved in running trials with Pacific Seeds, and that Pacific Seeds varieties yielded well on the property.

"We've got two trials here with a number of different varieties - one under irrigation and one dryland through Pacific Seeds," he said.

"I do the trials here because I don't want to know what it does on someone else's farm - I want to know what it does on my farm.

"I know further down the road MR-Buster won't grow well there, but it will here."

The high input costs for corn and issues with birdlife when growing sunflowers steered him towards the decision to only grow sorghum in summer.

Mr Lack said the variable weather forecast complicated decisions around planting.

"Weather forecasting makes it hard to plant around - they say 'rain' and it doesn't come," he said.

"It's hard to get consistency."

Mr Lack said the movement of soil and problems with weeds - particularly Johnson grass - had become a major issue as a result of the floods.

Both Duel Gold and Gesaprim were applied post-plant to control weeds.

Mr Lack went into partnership with his parents Gordon and Viola Lack after leaving school.

Just over 10 years ago his parents semi-retired and his wife Janet entered into the partnership.

They are no strangers to the effects of flooding as their property is situated on the Condamine River floodplains.

“We’ve been born and bred through flood; we’ve been through plenty of them and know what they can do,” he said.

“Most of the ground was covered in the flood 12 months ago as well as in the floods of December 2010 and January 2011.

“You will get a little bit of top dressing of silt from the neighbours and all their weeds as well or you might get weeds from the creeks where they are all growing.”

Despite these challenges, Mr Lack said the benefit of a flood that doesn’t do major damage is terrific as it fills up the soil moisture profile.

He said the benefit might not be seen in the first year following a flood but two or three years down the track the difference in yields spoke for itself.

Mr Lack said although the price for sorghum was strong, the uncertain season prevented many farmers from forward booking.

On Thursday, January 16, sorghum delivered to the Port of Brisbane was trading at $330/tonne.

“We’d love to book at the price but nobody is game to because you don’t know what’s going to happen with the season yet.”