MT IRVING farmer Ben Coleman is one of many Darling Downs growers looking towards the sky and wondering when the clouds will break.
Mr Coleman said the drought from the west had encroached on southern Queensland but it could all turn around in a week with 50 millimetres of rain.
The dry summer as well as inaccurate and changing weather forecasts has made it difficult to plan throughout the season.
"Dr Roger Stone was predicting a wet spring into summer and it's a bit of a rollercoaster when you start thinking of your cropping program, fertiliser and marketing," he said.
"Five days ago the Bureau was indicating falls up to 20-40mm and a 90 percent chance and all we end up with is 1mm.
"I hung off spraying weeds waiting for 'the rain' to go through but maybe I should have looked for ants crawling up the side of a post."
Mr Coleman suggested more money should be invested in improving forecasting.
Along with his wife Alison and their two young sons Samuel and Henry, they farm 400 hectares of cropping land and 50ha of grazing on the property Kurrajong and another block at Aubigny.
They planted 280ha of irrigated and dryland sorghum at the end of the first week of December, with the main varieties being Pacific Seeds MR-Buster, MR-Taurus, MR-43, and Pioneer G43.
"All the area has a good profile of subsoil moisture from the rainfall off Cyclone Oswald and in February and March 2013," he said.
"My thought was that it was going to be quite a productive summer but to not get good planting rain is extraordinary."
In terms of rainfall, they received 32mm at the end of November, 20mm throughout December - of which the biggest single fall was 8mm - and only 2mm in January. After the crop is harvested in April/May the soil will be left to fallow.
Mr Coleman grew up on a grain farm at Warwick, before studying finance and accounting at the Queensland University of Technology. He worked in a bank for 10 years and is a qualified CPA and Alison is a lawyer. The couple started buying blocks of land 10 years ago and made the shift into farming.
Mr Coleman said there can be great rewards in farming but getting the right season and the right price remains a challenge.
"Grain prices are good and it's frustrating to be curtailed from growing a crop," he said.
"I know two seasons ago we sold sorghum for $165 on-farm."
On Tuesday, January 7, sorghum delivered to the Port of Brisbane from the Darling Downs was trading at $320/tonne.
Melody Labinsky
Journalist for Queensland Country Life at Toowoomba.
Journalist for Queensland Country Life at Toowoomba.
