"The budgeted yield is 1.2t/ha but it looks like it has the potential to exceed and grain size is unlikely to be compromised by the heat," he says.

"Post-sowing rainfall of 15.4mm in five falls was just sufficient to get roots established in 120ha of sorghum (pictured) and the skip row soil is just starting to crack open with about 3cm cracks."

Another 500ha sown 30km west had less summer 2008-09 rain but was benefitting from moisture carryover from a failed 1t/ha faba bean crop in 2008, Mr Yates said.

"We run an integrated crop/livestock system so if summer is still dry through and after harvest we will use the stubble to finish cattle and Dorset-cross lambs.

"If the profile wets to more than 0.6m we will spray out and attempt to double crop into chickpeas but if not we will fallow to winter crop 2011."

Sorghum is demonstrating its value in the Yates' operation and the current crop followed barley planted in 2008, which left a significant store of unutilised soil moisture.

In 2008 the Yates sowed barley in 60cm rows to enable planting deep into soil moisture. The moisture-seeking strategy limited yield and densely sown headlands yielded 50pc more than the 2t/ha from the bulk of the crop.

"The wide rows were necessary to provide room to stack the soil between the rows so that the barley seed only had to come up through 5-8cm of soil," Mr Yates says. "The barley crop, despite its deep planting was limited and left significant stored moisture unutilised."

The moisture wasn't wasted, however, and after a weed control program that included several sprays of glyphosate over the summer and winter fallow, the Yates used a push probe to measure the soil moisture.

"The moisture profile was more than 1.5m deep and there was stored water the equivalent of more than 270mm rainfall available to the crop," Mr Yates says.

The weed control program was crucial to protecting the moisture store.

Rainfall was measured at 468mm from November 2008 to February 2009 including shallow surface inundation, and a further 100mm to the end of August 2009.

Mr Yates says he has not sprayed out the two recent sorghum crops, which yielded about 3t/ha.

"We will spray out if necessary but in our climate the factors we consider include the unevenness of ripening, the amount of stored moisture we are protecting, and assessment of the likelihood of major rainfall over the following fortnight or so based off our interpretation of the Global Forecast System (GFS) model," he says.

"We also prefer to have a live plant rather than a dead one to prevent lodging and prefer the value of a live plant with some grazing potential if needed."

Mr Yates says the value of 200ha of sorghum is the potential for 150 head of cattle gaining 1kg per day for 50 days at the current rate of 160c/kg.

"This amounts to $60/ha and if the drought continues there is an additional value for the next 50 days of about $30/ha depending on price of alternate feed," he says.

"The value for lambs is much higher early but they do not create as much value as cattle once the grain residue goes.

"Last year's crop was sprayed out a few weeks after harvest as we had 104mm a few days after harvest was complete."

Mr Yates says his winter crops were very pleasing this year and achieved good grades and yields.

"The chickpeas yielded less than expected and I suspect they took a hit from late heat but all grain size was terrific with the majority of barley reaching malt 1, and wheat APH2 and hard 2."