Wimmera farmers kick off their sowing, after the 'busiest summer spraying'

Nhill and surrounding growers will be looking for another 5-15 millimetres of rain over the coming weeks to help settle in their crops.

They are yet to declare an opening break, after isolated rain at the beginning of April.

Jarryd Dalhenburg, Nhill, is sowing vetch, beans, canola, wheat, barley, lentils and oats, with no changes to the previous season's program.

"Last season was good, but we got really wet over harvest," he said.

"We had a massive hail event Christmas Eve which slowed everything down and stuffed up yields a bit."

He said their sowing program would stay the same this year, but would keep an eye out for slug issues after the previous season.

"It's just on canola and lentils," he said.

"If it gets wet again we'll have to keep an eye out."

He said they planned to finish on either lentils or wheat near the end of May.

Bryce Warner, Nhill, started his sowing program one week ago, earlier than his usual, on beans, and would also sow lupins, vetch, lentils, canola, wheat and barley.

He also planned to sow lentils for their first time, and has more than doubled his canola program to 350 hectares from 170 hectares in the previous season.

"We're sowing into moisture here, it's dry on top, we only need 5-10 millimetres [of rain]," he said.

"It'd be nice to have a sprinkle of rain on top [for canola]."

He said they had tackled melons, heliotrope, and ryegrass over summer.

"We're all on time, we can poke along and get the legumes in, and hopefully have them done by [today] and we can swing into canola," he said.

Meanwhile, about 25 kilometres south west, Alan Bennett, Lawloit, has started at the beginning of April on vetch, cereal rye and barley.

"It's normal for us, we like to get early and sow sheep feed," he said.

"We'll do canola now, and if we finish the barley here we'll go on to beans.

"Hopefully by the end of the month we'll be mostly done with canola and beans and then think about doing cereals, wheat mainly."

He said they would sow between 6000-8000 hectares of crop this year.

Mr Bennett said they needed to be diligent with their pre-emergent herbicide package while dry sowing.

"It's become our strategy that we're prepared to spend a bit of money to get our crops away clean so we can sell them on time," he said.

"It was the busiest summer spraying we've ever had," he said.

"We seem to keep getting weeds germinating, we had cleanup jobs where paddocks were sprayed a third time."

They had issues in the 2023 season with snails and slugs, but did strong baiting.

He said they were very dry, but had crop trying to come up, including barley and cereal rye.

"There's moisture underneath, it's very dry on top, and realistically we only need about 10-15 millimetres [of rain]," he said.

Mr Bennett said despite having dry weather forecast for the coming days, the outlook seemed positive.

"They're talking about a La Nina, but the Indian Ocean Dipole being positive is a bit of a worry for us because that can have more impact on us than the ENSO system," he said.

"The past year wasn't supposed to be wet but it was.

"I feel once it starts raining, it might keep raining, but we'll just keep cropping."

He said it was a stressful time of year, but a "beautiful time if you weren't farming".

"You're always trying to get things done on time and your expectations are never met by what you can actually do," he said.

"You work big hours, you're not getting enough sleep, you're worried about what the season will do and you're juggling everything."