IT'S a big week on Grandview, the Jensen family property near Biloela, which is now the base for Australia's 2015 Grain Grower of the Year.
Darren Jensen, sweating again in the central Queensland spring heat after collecting the award in Sydney, will celebrate his 48th birthday today, Friday, by starting the harvest of his 1200 hectares of winter wheat and chickpeas.
Beside him will be his wife, Tanya, who shares the tough farm labour with her husband.
"She does all the jobs on the farm," Mr Jensen said. "Mum can pick up the kids off the school bus and look after them so we're pretty lucky to be able to organise it like that.
"One benefit is that Tanya looks after the machinery well, and you can't always rely on that with someone you employ."
The kids, Benjamin, nine, and Mia, seven, look set to continue the family farming tradition that started in the mid-1950s when Mr Jensen's dad, Bevan, and uncle, Ken, bought some 430ha of softwood scrub country, about 10 kilometres from Biloela.
Bevan Jensen later bought his brother's interest and, with wife Gwen and son Darren, spent his life farming Grandview.
Darren Jensen said his dad had died four years ago; his mum still lived on the property.
In recent years, the Jensens have bought another four small neighbouring blocks to give a total cropping area of about 1700ha.
The latest award – part of the ABC Rural and Kondinin Group's Farmer of the Year Awards - has highlighted Mr Jensen's achievements of recent years including his runner-up title in the 2012 National Farmers Federation awards for his erosion control.
He said a project with soil scientist Yash Dang on strategic tillage, Pacific Seeds' research and development including variety trials and Grains Best Management Practices (BMP) had featured in his award submission after his nomination by Greg Larson, who also farms in the district.
The focus this week is the Suntop and Kennedy wheat crop and Kyabra chickpeas that the Jensens planted in May with good stored soil moisture after 28 millimetres of rain in late April. He expects a good yield of about 3 tonnes per hectare, most of which he forward sold at $280 a tonne.
After the month-long wheat harvest the Jensens' attention will turn to their 600ha summer crop of Jade mungbeans.