barren they could hardly grow a

bean.

Don't be fooled. Many are bare

because they have been sprayed for

weeds ahead of what is looming as a

bumper crop this season.

Ignore the dust in the background

and look at grain grower Peter

O'Connor's smile and what's in his

hands.

The moist soil is enough to

dissolve into a distant memory the

last two horror seasons when

promising starts withered in an

unforgiving drought.

That soil promises the best harvest

in years as rain keeps falling and

commodity prices keep rising.

He's kneeling on Oxton Park, an

8000ha farm near Harden which

received soaking rain in March,

followed by more on Anzac Day and

most likely more will come this

weekend.

If it keeps falling, there'll be a

spring spreading of nitrogen that

will turn Oxton Park, which stretches

nearly all the way to Wallendbeen in

one direction and to Wombat in

another direction, into blankets of

yellow canola and lush green wheat.

After their father bought Oxton

Park in 1912, brothers Justin and

Kevin O'Connor turned the 1200ha

farm into a massive 8000ha

enterprise and introduced cropping

on a grand scale.

Aggressively borrowing and

buying neighbouring properties,

they developed the business before

both died in 1999, leaving five sons

and their families and six employees

to run Harden's biggest farming

enterprise.

Half the property is cropped, the

other half runs 30,000 sheep,

including 17,000 breeding ewes and

8000 cross-bred lambs.

Mr O'Connor (Justin's son) said

scale was everything these days.

''...We incorporated the farm

when we were under a lot of

pressure, we wanted to run things as

efficiently as possible rather than

have all the farms split up.

''We incorporated in 1995, that

enabled us to have a lot more clout

with the banks and the farm is big

enough that we can specialise in

different areas, so we are not

working under one another's feet.''

After spending $100,000 in

February spraying weeds, they

sweated on the forecast and sprang

into action when an early break

arrived in autumn.

Today every vehicle and farm

house kitchen crackles with two-way

radio chatter as they organise

tractors and seeders to work from

dawn into the night sowing canola,

wheat varieties, oats and triticale.

''What happens now can make a

big difference at the other end,'' Mr

O'Connor said. He believes wheat

could fetch as much as $350 a tonne.

Canola could be worth $700 a tonne.

Prices will need to be high because

fertiliser has risen 150 per cent in the

past 12 months to $1200 a tonne and

a drum of Round-Up pesticide has

nearly tripled to $280. Diesel is a

whopping $1.65 a litre.

And the O'Connors are still

servicing debt from acquisitions

which stopped in 1989. They carried

their debt comfortably until the past

two seasons. Two years ago, the crop

was a total failure.

Mr O'Connor has never seen such

volatility in world grain prices,

which are rising because of India

and China's economic growth,

drought and production of biofuels.

However, he said another little

publicised factor was a trade war

between Europe and the United

States, which was depressing prices

and making it difficult for Third

World nations to establish grain

production.

Mr O'Connor said seasonal

patterns caused drought.

''Climate change is something we

are learning to accept. We would see

it as a 20 to 30 year thing.

''We don't see this as climate

change having arrived and it is never

going to rain again ... this is a

seasonal pattern. If you look in the

records, it did happen back in the

1890s. There was a seven-year

drought.

''We're hoping this is six-year

drought, not a seven-year one.''