Despite low rainfall totals since the start of 2019, many croppers have decided to start their programs rather than wait for rain.
Dry sowing is occurring across the state as grain growers bite the bullet and sow into a dry seed bed with no residual moisture in the soil profile.
Growers are banking on rainfall during the growing season to sustain crops rather than wait for decent rain totals and risk overrunning the prime sowing times for crops.
Navarre grain and sheep producer Shane Bibby, along with parents Chris and Lyn, are well into a program that totals about 2100 hectares.
They started sowing on April 8, despite normally aiming to start in the second week of April, "whether it's rained or not".
Mr Bibby subscribes to private forecaster Anthony Viali of VA Weather who provides him with regular forecasts and a predictions a "lot further out" than others.
We aim to start in the second week of April whether it's rained or not.
- Shane Bibby, Navarre
"We've only been working daylight hours and we've got about 700ha in already, including 160ha of canola," Shane Bibby said.
Normally he would work out when he wanted to finish sowing - mid May this year - and then work back to a start date.
"It depends on how much crop you have to put in. You also need machinery that will get into hard ground," he said.
He said the program was "not regimented" as long as it included vetch and canola to go with various areas of grain, milling and hay oats and barley for grain and hay.
"It's a five-year rotation, but we are flexible in the areas of each," he said.
Problems accessing inoculant for vetch sowing was causing a delay in sowing the crop. The Bibbys will drop vetch out if rain hasn't come by mid May.
The Bibbys say "you are rarely disappointed with early sown crops".
"Safe" paddocks were chosen for the early dry-sown canola and oats.
The Bibbys also run 2500 Merino ewes, 2000 of which were joined to Merino and the balance to terminal sires.
The Merinos are bred from Old Dundee and Sohnic bloodlines and joined to lamb from the end of May to early June.
The ewes were on self feeders getting 600 grams a day of grain plus a bale of vetch hay.
"We'll crack the feeder open to 1kg a day as the lambs reach a month old," he said.