Their wheat fields are seas of undulating greens, rich in prospect, although the most they will concede is that the year has "potential".

Jeff McLoughlan, a fifth-generation grain farmer at Wooroonook, west of Charlton, has seen years like this before only for his crops to be devastated by a single frost.

The next six weeks will decide whether 2009 ends a long run of failed crops and minimal harvests. Yesterday, a heat shimmer distorted the air above Mr McLoughlan's ripening wheat and only the possibility of another shock frost clouded the future.

"We always say we need one more good rain. But, if we did not get it - all things being equal - there would still be grain about," he said. "The plants have enough moisture in them to produce that grain.

"The last couple of weeks of cool weather have been really important, just as important as the showers we have been getting."

Farming is not such a simple matter as a bountiful harvest. Global wheat prices have plummeted recently and the stronger Australian dollar - or weakening US dollar - will also cut into farmers' profits.

Those, however, are problems that Jon Whykes, who farms near Donald, is prepared to live with after years of belt tightening and living off his capital. Mr Whykes said international prices and the exchange rate would effectively halve returns, but the season was on track for at least an average harvest.

"There is a sense of disappointment," he said. "People have finally had a season where there's going to be a return for your effort … the fall in demand has made what was going to be a good year another struggle."

Nevertheless it would be a relief, should the season fulfil its promise, to return to normality: "Our last normal rainfall season was 1996. We have not had what we would term an average season since then. We are more advanced than we were at the same time last year. We are still getting some rain, as opposed to no rain … the later crops need more rain through to mid-November," Mr Whykes said.