Selected Seeds Tableland extension agronomist Ian (Rhino) Johnson said the company had about 1200 hectares growing FineCut Rhodes (for which it holds the variety rights).

FineCut can produce three seed harvests each wet season - in December, March and late May. Production averages about 370kg/hectare cut.

However, it can be as high as 600kg when conditions are ideal - as happened in 2007-08 - or as little as 270kg/ha, which came from the cut just finished.

The low production this season was due to cool conditions when the crop should have come away after winter and a lack of sunshine in following months.

To maintain the production the paddocks are fertilised with about 250kg urea/hectare after each cut.

When weather permits, following the seed harvest, the plant material is made into hay.

However, because that is not always possible, growers have an array of machinery that mulches the trash as it can be so heavy it rots ratooning grass.

FineCut Rhodes was developed by breeding from seedlings selected from Katambora.

Because Rhodes grasses are open pollinated and other Rhodes species grow on the Tableland, the FineCut crop is kept for only three seasons before being ploughed out and replanted. This is because cross pollination could downgrade the seed.

The Saudis use FineCut Rhodes to produce hay, which is added to lucerne hay and grain to feed Friesian cows.

One of Selected Seed's clients houses 200,000 milking cows in three climate-controlled sheds.

That compares to the entire Tableland dairy herd, which numbers no more than 30,000.

The company grows its crops beneath 100 centre pivot irrigators in an area so large it is impossible to see from one end to the other.

Mr Johnson said daily water use in the desert is about 20 millimetres/day but when the temperature exceeds 50 degrees it can go as high as 50mm, all sourced from underground aquifers that are deeper than the oil wells.

The other grass seed produced for Selected Seeds on the Tableland comes from 200 hectares of Bisset creeping blue grass, about the only Australian native tropical grass used in pasture improvement programs.