BRIAN Worcester knows he is one of the lucky ones.

On Black Saturday, the cattle and alpaca farmer had planned to stay and defend his 40ha property at Buxton.

But as smoke, embers and scorching winds roared in at more than 100km/h, tearing trees in half, he thought again.

"There was a mountain of cloud 30m high - it just rolled in like a wave," he said.

"I equated it to a tsunami, except it was smoke and fire.

"And the intensity and fierceness of the wind - I didn't have time to be scared. I just acted on instinct."

The flames swept through Brian's farm, on the Maroondah Highway, before the wind suddenly changed direction.

While the Buxton township was saved, the fire destroyed four sheds on Brian's farm, machinery including his tractor, 6km of fencing, hay and trees.

Brian and his wife, Jenny, also lost their store, from which they sold premium-quality alpaca wool garments, in Marysville.

"We lost 80 per cent of our income, just 'bang'," he said.

Miraculously, the family home survived, as did Brian's huacaya alpacas and 50 Angus cattle.

"We were some of the fortunate ones," Brian said.

"We saved the house and we didn't lose one single animal.

"We had alpacas in the yards on bare dirt and all the cattle on the river flats and they survived. I couldn't believe it when I saw them alive."

While Brian is still overcoming the terrible trauma of Black Saturday, his farm has enjoyed a speedy recovery.

His paddocks, which boast balanced soils as a result of the use of biological-enhancing fertilisers, are producing nutrient-rich feed.

After the fires, Brian's surviving summer crop of millet and herbs was the only green patch on the 30km stretch of road between Narbethong and Taggerty, thanks to cooler soil and deep-rooted plants.

"People would say, 'Whose paddock is that down there?'," Brian said.

"And after we had that first rain you could see black ground and all these green rows in the other paddocks.

"The recovery was immense."

The green was a welcome sight, especially during the first three months after the fire, which Brian described as frantic and intense.

"There was stock everywhere, burnt," he said.

"There were difficulties with feed, fire outbreaks all the time.

"We were rushing off everywhere - there were only a couple of tractors bringing in hay, trying to keep everybody going.

"You didn't have time to think."

Brian is a long-time advocate for biological-enhancing fertilisers and is also the local agent for products made by Shepparton company TNN Industries.

The company makes most of its products locally and works with US sustainable-agriculture scientist Dr Arden Anderson.

Now, more than ever, Brian is convinced the method works. His green paddocks fed his alpacas for three months after the fires, when the rest of the region was scrambling for feed.

Brian said a holistic approach to soil and crop management meant soils held moisture better, stayed cooler over summer and didn't get waterlogged.

"Rather than mono crops, I plant crops with a bit of grass in them," he said.

"There are better nutrients for the animals to digest."

An undercrop of two clovers, a white clover and subterranean clover, and the herbs plantain and chicory, forms a pasture underneath the millet.

The clovers add nitrogen to the soil, while the chicory and plantain are good for feed.

"A lot of people think herbs are weeds," Brian said.

"We do tissue tests on the plants and they have very high mineral and food values.

"It leaves a residue crop in the paddock after the millet has gone - that's the benefit of it."

A new crop planted at the beginning of December, now 60cm high, is being cut for silage.

Brian said the key was beginning with healthy soil, and this was where biological fertilisers came into play.

"It's about adding some biology into the soil," he said.

"These are natural products: a lot of seaweed, fish, rock phosphates.

"When people are trying to grow grasses from countries which have more alkaline soils, like Europe and the US, you have to make the soil suit the grass.

"We use the best products for the soil and for the grass. We add in the minerals and calcium and magnesium to balance the soils."

Brian discovered the use of biological-enhancing fertilisers almost 20 years ago, when he and Jenny first started breeding alpacas.

Originally from Peru, with its mineral-rich soils, the alpacas required twice as much zinc, copper and selenium as cattle in Australia.

"They were dying like flies in Australia because people weren't giving them the right minerals," Brian said.

"We were hunting everywhere to get the product to do the job."

When Brian first experimented with the fertilisers, he immediately knew he was on the right track.

"We just turned things around very quickly," he said.

Brian boasts almost 100 per cent calving with no intervention, and shiny, fat animals with high meat content and weight for age.

"The fertility of the animals, when you get your mineral levels right, is not a problem," he said.

"Some people say 'we only have a 10 per cent problem', but it should be 1 per cent."

Brian said his animals ate up to 40 per cent less, with the same result.

"The food is absolutely properly digested, rather than fermenting in the stomach," he said.

Brian sells direct to the Little Creek Cattle Company in the Yarra Valley, who require steers and heifers with 4-10mm fat.

Brian said his process was somewhere between biodynamic and conventional farming.

It could be achieved on the same budget as conventional fertilising, he said.

"But it's not just about more production. It enhances your end product, your animal, your vegetable," he said.

He likened the process to maintaining a car.

"You have your tyres, battery, petrol, oil. If you don't have them all, they can't possibly work," Brian said.

"Petrol is your calcium and your battery, which you change every six years, is like your boron, at the other end of the chain, but absolutely essential.

"If you take bits away, things don't work properly."

Brian never has to harrow, thanks to dung beetles which swarm like bees on his property, eating the manure and dragging it into the ground, which feeds the soil.

The year ahead is looking better for Brian, who is busy assisting many burnt-out farms with improving their soils.

He is also working with local strawberry, witlof and pea growers.

One local paddock, burnt bare black after the fires, has just produced 155 bales of silage from 6ha, with Brian's help.

A year on from Black Saturday, Brian said locals were still affected.

"You have an edge you don't normally have about you, an emotional edge," he said.

"We've come out of it all right."