Continued cold weather has meant the chance of mice numbers on farmer's properties in Victoria getting to plague levels this season is now virtually nil.
Croppers throughout the Wimmera-Mallee, in particular, can sigh with relief at the forecast.
Earlier this year, the CSIRO and Grains Development and Research Corporation recorded a moderate growth of mice numbers in the northwest of the state, causing some concern among croppers.
But Grain Producers Australia southern director and special projects manager Andrew Weidemann said this year's continued cold and wet weather and effective baiting programs had kept mice in check.
"At this stage we're quite optimistic that we won't have too many troubles going into spring with mice in our area," he said.
"Obviously, the National Mouse Management Working Group for mice is constantly looking at the overall picture across Australia, and there were some reports earlier of building WA and some reasonable numbers in certain areas in New South Wales.
"So there are still those pockets of numbers that have got to be kept in check, particularly for spring as we saw in New South Wales last year."
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Breeding cycles had been interrupted significantly in Victoria, but that won't necessarily mean upcoming seasons will have small mice numbers, according to Mr Weidemann.
"We generally see a build-up potentially in February or March next year, so we tend to have autumn mouse plagues," he said.
"The stubble retention that most are using now, we've created an environment where mice can thrive very well,"
Mr Weidemann referenced recent findings from the CSIRO that farmers should double the strength of mice baits to ensure vermin are consuming a lethal dose is also an important step for croppers regarding future control of mice.
"The industry through the National Management Working Group is looking at all different ways of potentially being able to control mice longer term," he said.
"But in the short term, we've really only got one broadacre option, which is zinc phosphide as bait which the industry have the permit for at the moment."
CSIRO researcher Steve Henry said tests with double dose baits - which contained 50 grams of zinc phosphate per kilogram killed 80 per cent of the mouse population more than 90pc of the time.
He said an important notation that "jumped out to him" during the study - if a mouse had a "sub-lethal" dose of zinc phosphite and lived, they would stop taking the bait straight away.
"If the first grain they encounter isn't a lethal dose, then the chances of them becoming bait-adverse are really quite high," he said.
Mr Henry said future mice alerts would also outline trapping experiments he is currently working on with mouse enclosures in Walpeup, in the Mallee region.
"We were here about three weeks ago to catch mice that we needed to put into those enclosures, and we were quite surprised at some results," he said.
"We were trapping in paddocks immediately adjacent to Walpeup, too and at this time of the year, we normally get two or three per cent trap success, but we were getting about 20pc trap success this time around," he said.
"Now having said that, the numbers are patchy in their nature so in one paddock we got over 20pc traps success and in another paddock we've got less than 1pc traps success."
He said despite the low threat of plague, croppers in western Victoria should still remain vigilant for mice and check multiple paddocks because of that variability.