After fires in early September blackened all their hill country and threatened alluvial river flats, Kendall and Kate Dowley, Growvale Park, sat down and made a plan.
Drought on this part of the Upper Clarence, downstream from Tabulam, required direct intervention with calves off 200 Angus breeders sold in October with cropping paddocks interred under stubble.
"I wasn't game to till because if I had we'd have no crop this summer," said Mr Dowley, who with his wife Kate decided to direct drill any seed on the back of rain.
The young family went away for Christmas, with their 10 month old daughter Evelyn but came straight back home on Boxing day to take advantage of storm rain totalling 70mm.
"There were puddles everywhere. It came down heavy," said Mrs Dowley, who recorded a further 70mm since.
"One week the cows were grazing barley and wheat stubble and the next we were planting. You've got to make a plan and do it."
Chomper hybrid forage sorghum was direct drilled and the jump was remarkable, with a first cut after just 31 days.
"We took a gamble and tried it," said Mr Dowley. "It's better to grow your own fodder if you can and sorghum grows overnight in the right conditions."
With the first cut taken off last Friday measuring shoulder high in the gullies, Mr Dowley said the crop just one week prior was knee high.
Ground preparation did not follow traditional principals, because the drought demanded action from outside the box.
"We usually strip till before sowing but late last year it was just impossible, the ground was that hard and dry and when it rains the last thing you want to be doing is losing moisture to evaporation."
Instead the fine stemmed, hybrid sorghum was direct drilled into rich alluvial soils. Other paddocks planted to Hayman soybeans have followed, along with Surf variety soy, with seed from their own previous harvests required now that the variety is no longer offered commercially.
"The Surf variety of soy just suits our soils," said Mr Dowley. "But it has a bigger seed which is hard to germinate in the dry."
For grain sorghum the season is too far gone, with the real risk of too many rain events at harvest. As for the next couple months these young farmers haven't locked-in any promises.
"It could go either way this year," said Mr Dowley. "The forecast this week is for rain but a lot of the time it doesn't eventuate."
