KWEDA farmer Alan Manton has this week finished planting lupins as he pushes on with his seeding program.
So far he has seeded his sheep feed, with 30 kilograms per hectare of Scope barley and 5kg/ha of Dalkeith sub clover.
Mr Manton had finished his Scope barley program but is yet to seed the rest of the La Trobe barley.
This week he will move on to his Scepter and Devil wheat program and oats which will complete the 2200ha.
The barley, lupins, oats and wheat each take up 25 per cent of the program with a separate 200ha being seeded to pastures.
Mr Manton is also holding back 200ha of non-seeded pastures for when the season breaks and the natural feed can come through.
"We are hoping that if we do get rain that it will help our sheep feed to get started until the natural feed bulks up," Mr Manton said.
"We graze the Scope barley too so hopefully we can get the sheep on and off that in time."
Mr Manton has 2200 lambing ewes mated to terminal sires.
He said this time of year was frustrating because they were losing lambs when the ewes wanted to go for food or a drink of water.
"When you have an early break and early feed then they are more likely to stay with the lambs," Mr Manton said.
"And feed is the hardest one.
"We do have a lot of grain and hay still on hand, but no matter how much you feed them with grain or hay, it doesn't replace green feed."
Mr Manton said there had been no meaningful rainfall since October last year.
"The difference last year was we did have summer rain," he said.
"Last year we had confidence in the subsoil but this year there is nothing underneath and there is a different mind set around."