Dry sowing will more than likely be out of fashion for this year's cropping season, with widespread rainfall across western Victoria on Monday and Tuesday giving farmers prime confidence in their sowing operations this year.
For Craig Henderson, who runs a total broadacre farming operation on many properties throughout the Buloke and Yarriambiack regions, the rains have given him reasonable optimism ahead of this year's sowing.
"We've got five electronic weather stations on our farm and at present for the last 12 month period, our Brim property is well up on average, while the rest is around average," Mr Henderson said.
"Looking at the moisture probes for that period, we're actually going into this cropping period with slightly more subsoil moisture than we started with last year."
Mr Henderson's Brim property has seen an above average performance for rainfall, with 474 millimetres of rain for the past 12 months giving him confidence ahead of sowing.
But the rains this week, which ranged from 20 to 50mm across his properties, will unfortunately mean he will have to wait a little longer to avoid any early emergence.
"As soon as it dries out in the middle, we'll go," he said.
"I do generally like to sow when it's dry as it's easier, and then get the rain coming in a bit later as long as your wheat control is good."
The rain will also congest a time period for sowing, which Mr Henderson said will mean a three week window of hard work for things to be completed.
"It is always good to get the rain, but we now know we've got a pretty solid three weeks coming."
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David Jochinke, Murra Wurra, certainly agrees that the next month or so will see cropper farmers work a little earlier on their sowing, which would be "unusual for the past few decades".
He's hoping weeds will be stimulated as soils will be warm and growth will happen quickly, which would be a happy sight, considering the past few months.
"When you see the news and the East Coast absolutely getting hammered with a lot of rain, and then us looking at our own rain gauge here in the west, we just weren't getting any of that rainfall in this area north of Horsham leading right up to the Mallee," he said
"We did manage to jag about 70 or 80mm for the year to date, but that's nothing compared to what other people have received.
"So we were sitting in a situation here where we've got some moisture but not enough to dream about getting a crop established right now, but I'm feeling good about our operation."
Mr Jochinke, who is the current vice president of the National Farmers Federation, says farmers should be now well-adapted to make dry sowing an "everyday occurance and by-the-calendar."
For him, there are only a few minor jobs and everything is ready to go without many problems, but he reinforces further rain down the track will that will set the scene for great sowing success.
"The soil will just suck this rain in and it will disappear quickly," Mr Jochinke said.
"As far as trackability goes, we have no fear of mud or getting bogged on the back of this rain too.
"I would predict that this is giving everyone strong confidence, considering we've come off the back of two to three - depending on where you are - really good seasons."
Mr Jochinke was also wary of some challenges ahead for farmers in his region, including input costs for the season ahead, but believes good management will minimise any impact.
"We are looking at down the barrel of high input costs for the season but commodity prices should counter that enough," he said.
"The the final value what we're doing will have a bit of a time lag and if we can get them to marry up on a strong start that we are now. I think that anybody who sets their crops up right will be rewarded accordingly."
Andrew Weidemann, Rupunyip, has the same optimism as Mr Jochinke and Mr Henderson, with the rains will killing weeds ahead of his sowing operation this year.
"I'd actually classify this as an autumn break because of the size of it, and on the back of some rain we had in March," he said.
"We actually had some clovers going and of course this rain will now help us with a good weed kill prior to sowing."
Mr Weidemann said there was already some sowing of vetch at his property, and there had already been canola that's been grown locally, but felt it was fine to wait a bit longer.
"At the end of the day it's pretty early to get crops up and going for us," he said.
"You've got a frost risk issue by going too early so we'll cyclically starting our sowing after Anzac Day, but we'll get a weed kill and keep on with it."
