BRUCE Alexander believes when cereal grain prices drop as low as $200 a tonne, big yields are needed to remain profitable.

The grain grower from Mannibadar, in Victoria's Western District, said prices were "shocking" at the moment - almost unsustainable at about $200/tonne.

"You need to get up to the 4-5 tonnes/ha mark to counter that," Bruce said.

His gairdner barley yielded about 4.5 tonnes/ha this harvest, while feed wheat varieties brennan and revenue both produced about 5-6 tonnes/ha.

This season, their kellalac wheat will yield no more than 3-4 tonnes/ha.

"Kellalac is starting to let us down a bit now," Bruce said. "It needs two foliar sprays each year (to counter fungal diseases)."

Bruce and wife Lyn have a 1050ha property at Mannibadar and a further 320ha sharefarmed at Wallinduc.

Son Robert and his wife Sarah run a 280ha property at Ballyrogan, while another son, John, farms 260ha at Skipton.

Both sons also sharefarm another 320ha at Wallinduc.

Collectively, the Alexanders crop about 2230ha of grain and run 5000 Merino ewes, although the three farms are run separately.

Bruce said Robert and John each had their own seeders and harvesters, so they planted all John and Lyn's crop and helped with harvesting too.

Bruce and Lyn also grow 120ha of milling oats each year for export.

He sells half the oat crop to Bill May's grain processing operation at Smeaton and the other half is stored on farm for delivery to Blue Lake Milling at Murtoa later in the year.

When delivering to Murtoa, he backloads with gypsum from Hopetoun, which is spread on paddocks about to be sown to canola.

Bruce said he planned to grow about 600ha of canola this year, after a break from the crop this season.

"We didn't grow canola this past year because we didn't have a disease problem," he said. "Plus during the previous three years, we have not had good crops.

About one third of the Alexanders' grain has been warehoused this year with the rest sold to various companies.

Last week, Bruce was delivering grain to the new SQP Storage site at Werneth, north of Cressy.

It is in a booming area for grain production and filled a gap for growers who would otherwise deliver to the port terminal at Geelong.