Stock losses in drought times are heartbreaking.

But Graham Traves' Woodlock Pol Dorset Stud in the Central Tablelands, NSW, managed to get through the recent dry with its ewes and lambs in good order.

"We had a good crop of winter wheat that had only 3L/ha of R.U.M. on it and we turned the flock onto that when everything started to dry up", Graham said.

"Then we moved them onto some oats and finally onto the lucerne you see today."

And that's dryland lucerne in its fourth year of R.U.M."

A longtime R.U.M. user, Graham knows that feed quality is always more important than feed quantity.

With 670-odd acres under pivot irrigation, Rod Stevenson and his fellow irrigators near Geurie, NSW, are hoping that recent encouraging rains continue.

Their large cropping operations rely on water from the Macquarie River that in turn carries release from the Burrendong Dam. And the dam currently needs rain - lots of it.

Rod has a 210 acre pivot watering his 'Bonus' sorghum.

"This is our first season with R.U.M. and the good results so far will encourage us to look at other R.U.M. options like seed-dressing", Rod said.

On 'Terra Bella', the long-held family property, Rod is also growing seed corn under contract to Pioneer.

"They're out here twice a week monitoring the crop's progress. And they seem happy so far", said Rod's right-hand man, Graeme Delany.

"Rod's pretty open to new ideas in plant nutrition and that's starting to come through with the R.U.M.-treated crops."

The Cooks and their cauliflowers

Michael Cook shows Peter Irwin (Beaulieu R.U.M.) some of his new season cauliflower

Now cauliflower might not be the sexiest veg in the world but we still consume a lot of it.

Just ask Michael Cook of 'Gorman's Hill', Bathurst, whose family has been supplying the fresh article to the Sydney markets for around 50 years.

"We grow cauliflowers, and now corn, on our 120 acres here. We start cutting in late December and continue in early August", Michael said.

This year Michael and his dad Harry decided to include R.U.M. in their plant nutrition programme.

"Buyers are really demanding quality produce now, so it's in our interests to find new, more natural ways of growing cauliflowers", Michael added. "We're also growing corn under contract to Simplot and their managers are encouraging us along the natural path."

"We apply 2.5L/ha of R.U.M. by boomspray every few weeks and, because it acts like a wetter, we incorporate it with our insecticides if the grub burden warrants it."

"Overall, that's around 12.5L/ha R.U.M. over the growing period."

"And a better quality cauli for our tables. "