Cambooya district farmer Murray Todd has farmed his Dalkeith country for 42 years and reckons he needs four or five average to good seasons to recover financially from the recent years of drought.
Dalkeith consists of 540 hectares of beautiful arable black soil downs running to Hodgson's Creek flats, and some ridge country.
About 400ha is farming cultivation while the balance is used to background up to 140 steers that Mr Todd buys at the Toowoomba Saleyards.
He said the last decent winter crop he enjoyed was from chickpeas planted in 2017 following good rainfall from Cyclone Debbie, but the job of farming has gotten tougher since then.
"I have lived here since 1979 and over time the reliability of rainfall has definitely waned, in what was a once 28 inch rainfall belt," Mr Todd said.
"We received just 12 inches last year, and have received nine inches so far this year."
The pain of several years without a winter crop has also been compounded by summer crops that "have certainly been hit and miss".
Mr Todd said the 2019 summer crop was half baked and returned 1.875 tonnes per hectare, against his normal average of 5.625t/ha.
"Our sunflower crop was a complete failure against a return of 2.5t/ha," he said.
Following good rain during January and February this year, Mr Todd took a punt and planted 90ha of sorghum and 50ha of sunflowers on just half a metre of soil moisture.
"We will start harvesting in about a month's time and I am not sure what we will finish up with," he said.
"This is the first time I haven't forward sold the crop as I will wait until I have some idea of the quality and yield."
In March 2017, Mr Todd pinned his hopes on the wool market and purchased the Turn Turn/Wittendurra aggregation, consisting of 56,587 hectares, near Eulo.
"I really thought the wool market would take off, and it did for a while, but has now dived," he said.
"To see Turn Turn looking so great out there certainly helps offset the rainfall deficiencies here at Dalkeith."
