Northern Victorian growers are making changes on farm to adapt to the water market.

Brett and Colin Radcliffe, Tyisha Pastoral Company, are fifth generation farmers and have both irrigated and dryland crops and a hay contracting business.

The brothers say they have gone from growing about 600 acres of lucerne down to 200 acres because of the cost and reduced access to water following a rise in permanent plantings.

"We've been forced out of it with the lack of water in the system," Colin said.

"We've ended up buying more irrigation country as well, without water, that we've been trying to replace with permanent."

Other growers in the area were also moving away from lucerne, he said.

To improve efficiently they had gone from five cuts of lucerne to three and were also turning the focus to dryland crops.

"We're gradually moving away from lucerne being a permanent plant, now we're opportune farming our irrigation," he said.

"When water's at the right price we load up on water and try and grow a crop.

"We try and get an autumn irrigation in and put cereals on.

"We've had to change what we're growing here."

Planning ahead was difficult and what they could make from their product limited what they could pay for water.

About $120 per megalitre was beginning to get out of reach, Brett said.

Drier years had seen the water price skyrocket toward $1000/ML, while last year the farm's average buy price was $130/ML.

They were storing a lot of product on-farm to sell later and were also widening their client base, Brett said.

Water security remained a concern going forward but this year the price had so far remained relatively affordable.

"We've got water stacked away, we were able to irrigate everything out of the ground this year, we're having a real crack at the irrigation this year with canola and some of the more expensive crops to grow," Colin said.

Dairy farmer John Eade milks around 1000 head between his two farms and also runs a silage contracting business.

He agreed producers were trying to be more flexible with their operations.

"What I've noticed in the last 10 years is they're probably farming more to the water prices," he said.

"On a low water price they'll grow corn and whatever they can and then put it away for when the water price is high."

The biggest difficulty was trying to predict seasonal conditions and water prices early, he said.

"It's certainly made it a lot different for the growers and the dairy farmers," he said.

"The smart ones tend to look ahead and say, 'I'll try and put six, eight, 12 months feed in front of me so if the water is $600 then I don't have to buy it."

Mr Eade said during years when water was more expensive he had chopped his wheat crops and bought grain in, rather than buying hay or irrigating.

More people were beginning to move away from relying solely on irrigation, he said.

"There's probably more people starting to milk cows off dryland in this area," he said.

"They'll be buying dry ground more so than irrigation.

"I reckon they're more flexible in where they source their feed."

He had a permanent water supply for security but it was a concern that family businesses were having to compete against corporates.

Rising land prices was also a concern.

"Now all of a sudden ground has doubled in price - you actually start to wonder whether you should be buying water or buying ground," he said.

In 2004 he sold water and instead bought five tons of wheat crops.

"The water made $1000 temporary, which for me was a no brainer," he said.

"I couldn't grow five tonne for that money.

"The frustrating thing with the water is we could have an average year but it's what happens downstream or somewhere else as to what price we're paying for the water."

Kerang grower Louis Chirnside has a mix of irrigated and dryland crops.

He said changing varieties and being more careful with summer weed control had helped improve yields in dryland crops on less rainfall.

"I had an example a couple of years ago which was a really dry year, and I sprayed the dryland paddock and we ran out of spray on the last run," he said.

"The difference in yield where we controlled the weeds after rain in summer went from two tonne a hectare to zero."

Although water prices could make it harder to plan ahead, it was just another factor to manage, he said.

"We're opportunistic users of water," he said.

"Because our crops are annual, we can make a choice of whether we use water or don't use water.

"We've had years we're the irrigation's got us through, we've had years where the dryland's got us through."

The call had to be made early in the season by balancing up the economics, he said.

"We sow at a different rate if we're going to irrigate than if we're not going to irrigate, and fertiliser use is different, and then how we treat the crop through the year is different," he said.