NORTHERN Victorian growers are celebrating after heavy falls have revived the 2015 growing season.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) most cropping regions in Victoria last week enjoyed rainfall of 20mm or more, and some regions of Gippsland and the north-east recorded even more.
Rains weren't dampening the spirits of Horsham farmer Tim Rethus and others in the district.
In fact, Mr Rethus was thrilled to put his gumboots on and heading out onto his paddocks where his family's cereals, legumes and oaten hay have started growing well.
Mr Rethus, with brother Luke and father Geoff, has 4200 hectares under crops spread over farms at Horsham and Noradjuha, which is some 20km south-west.
They have sown a mix of wheat, barley, lentils, broad beans, oaten hay and brown manure vetch.
"We didn't sow canola this year because its price was poor last year and we were unsure about this season's rainfall," Mr Rethus said.
According to BoM figures, Horsham received 64.6 millimetres of rain in January, thanks mostly to summer storm deluges, but from February to May, only 45.6mm fell – and mostly in scattered showers that did little to generate sub soil moisture.
"This growing season started off really dry, so we pretty much did all dry sowing," he said.
"Fortunately the disc seeder works well in the dry, and the growers in the district who use them, their crops have gotten up because we were able to get them in early to take advantage of this month's rain."
He said their no-till practices also helped to retain moisture.
The Rethus family started sowing on April 17 with their vetch and did their first cereal on April 24 and finished the program "at least a month ago".
"We were one of the earlier people to finish, because once it starts going, you just keep going."
The lentils were sown last and the plants are growing well.
Initially, the crops' germination was a bit patchy, particularly on the different soil types (with Noradjuha tending to have heavier soil than high quality, well-draining, black soil at their Horsham farm).
Although this month's 30mm of rain (including 14mm that fell last Monday) has put a grin on Mr Rethus' face he said agronomists forecast that this year's rain is tracking a little below average.
"If it turns off early we know there is no soil moisture underneath after last year's dry season," he said.
The Rethus' have spread about 600ha of urea and will wait to see what further rainfall eventuates before they spread more.
"Because the southern property yielded well, we've put more nutrients back into it, but we'll wait to apply at Horsham and we might get away with doing one instead of two applications," he said.
On the other side of the state, grower Steve Ludeman also enjoyed the 30-35mm of rain that fell across the family's properties in and around Dookie.
"It was the first decent rain for quite a while and ideally we'd like another follow up to get moisture into the subsoil."
