IF the 2019 cropping program can mirror that of last year it should be a good one for Cowcowing farmer Campbell Jones.
The start to this year's season is almost a mirror image to that of last year's program that ultimately saw his canola crops average 1.6 tonnes per hectare and the wheat and barley average 2.5t/ha.
After only recording 3.8 millimetres of rain in May, the current season didn't break until 11mm fell on June 11, being part of 63.4mm for the month and was followed by another good fall of 25.4mm on July 5.
From January to March this year the property only received 25.2mm of rain, almost identical to the 30.2mm for the same period last year.
And the similarities continue - with 86.8mm from April to June last year and 88mm this year.
The real kicker last year was 114.3mm from July to September but of that, only 3mm fell in September.
"If we had rain in September last year it would have been phenomenal around here but it was still good," Mr Jones said - something he is hoping will continue this year.
Last year he planted 350ha of canola, 1200ha of barley, 420ha to fallow and 3200ha to wheat, with the breakdown similar this year, albeit with a bit more canola.
Most of the wheat being planted is Scepter "which is a good variety that fits really well for us".
"We have had that for three to four years now and we did have other varieties and I have got a bit of Chief in this year,'' he said.
"We have planted Sparticus for our barley - it is a good variety, it is not itchy like Scope and it has been good yielding.
"You have got that option of cleaning up the paddocks with Intrevix, because with dry seeding you don't get an opportunity to get a germination of barley grass and brome grass.
"Most of our canola goes in on fallow, so I actually waited until it was a fallow paddock as it was always going to go in with canola.
"We do a chemical fallow and then we follow it up with a GM canola, so it gets a two-year break for disease and weeds.
"I have put in 420ha of Roundup Ready canola and then 150ha of TT canola which won't be much chop - it hasn't come up that well."
Given the similarities, Mr Jones and his full-time employee Brad Phillips, starting dry seeding on April 13.
He is not locked into a particular starting time, saying, "we just get going when we are ready to go".
About 3000ha of the program went in dry, something they are accustomed to.
"The past two seasons we have done the whole program dry," Mr Jones said.
"It doesn't worry me to do it dry but I did deep rip a bit of country this year and it came up pretty rough and that's all the stuff that I have left until after it rained.
"It came up real cloddy and it would have been horrible if I seeded it dry, so I left it until after it rained and it actually came up pretty well."
And a bit more deep ripping could be on the radar in the future.
Mr Jones said he would have about 500ha of fallow this year and plans to spread that with lime and gypsum and deep rip it.
He has a lime deposit on some moral country that has a neutralising value of about 50 per cent of Lancelin lime, so he is digging that up and spreading it.
"It has cost me about $3 a tonne to dig it up and have it screened so it is a lot cheaper than dragging it all the way back from Lancelin," he said, although he will have to spread it at twice the rate.
On top of that Mr Jones has a gypsum pit on the edge of the nearby Cowcowing lake system that he has only just started using.
"We never had a spreader and the old man (Brian) wasn't too worried about it but if you have got it, you may as well use it," he said.
After seeding was completed, Mr Jones, his wife Amanda and five children, (four girls and one boy, aged between four and 10 years of age) packed up and headed on a road trip to Uluru in the Northern Territory.
"We don't generally get away at all during the year, we wait until the end of the year and then have a couple of weeks off," he said.
"But we just had to do it."
When they departed some of the crop hadn't come through but by the time they returned to WA mid last week, it was all out of the ground and doing well.
"We were going to go away in the school holidays but it was just going to be real busy with the spraying then, whereas the other week we could get away with leaving Brad with a few jobs to chip away with."
All of the land that was dry seeded now needs to be sprayed and once that is done, they will move onto the land that was seeded last and is now emerging.
"We have sprayed all the GM canola, that is all done so now it is just all the cereals that have got to be done," he said.
Mr Jones said he didn't see much of a need to vary his program from year to year.
"We try to get 400 to 500ha of fallow every year," he said.
"I didn't do it a couple of years ago and I had a bit of summer rain and decided to put in a bit more canola and I probably should have left it in fallow really.
"The canola went alright at 0.9t/ha so it was profitable, but you just don't get enough break from one year.
"With canola you don't get that break of weeds and you don't get on top of them properly, whereas with a two-year break you do."
Most of last year's barley went to feed.
"We might have had one load that went Malt but the protein was down and we probably should have given it another shot of nitrogen but you sort of wonder how much money you spend on it," Mr Jones said.
"Even though we had 48mm for August, it cut off in the middle of the month but we had good rains before that so it stayed green and then we just didn't have any rain in September.
"I know people have said you should have put a bit more nitrogen out and then when it was dry in September you think there is no point and then we did get rain in October, so it kicked on a bit.
"And the barley had done its thing a bit by then, whereas the wheat still had a fair bit of green in it."
This year Mr Jones said he put about 30 units of nitrogen in upfront and then ordered urea and still has a bit of Flexi-N on hand.
While Farm Weekly reported last week there was a nitrogen shortage, Mr Jones didn't think he would have any issues.
"I think I should be OK, I haven't filled up my tanks, but I don't think I will now," he said.
"I filled up a couple of tanks during seeding and got a bit extra during seeding before the shortage came on so I was lucky with that.
"I have still got about 50,000 litres of Flexi-N left and I have got about 120 tonne of urea coming so that should be enough and get me through with what I have put in upfront.
"Everything has had 50 kilograms of compound and then 40-50L of Flexi-N."
Controlled Traffic Farming (CTF) is part of the program to reduce soil compaction and "it has worked out fairly well for us".
"We bought the boomsprayer a couple of years ago and that was 120 foot and the air seeder was 62 foot, so it was only a matter of taking a couple of tynes off," Mr Jones said.
"Then with the tractor (Steiger 500) we took the duels off and put the inside duels out to three metre centres.
"The header was on duels at the time and we had trouble with tyres a few years ago and we were looking at getting new tyres on the header and I had spare rims in the shed off the tractor, so we just went stuff it - we will go back to the singles on the header and just used the rims off the tractor.
"So it wasn't a huge outlay for us and it seemed to work."
Mr Jones said there were a few neighbouring farms dabbling with CTF and said while he was looking at reducing soil compaction, he was also noticing fuel savings.
He said now the tractor wasn't working as hard.
"Even though we are on singles we are not getting a lot of wheel slip because we are on hard tracks," he said.
Looking ahead, Mr Jones was hopeful of more rain.
"With this sort of country it can take as much rain as you like," he said.
"The heavy country just soaks it up and you need the rain on this stuff.
"If we can get similar rains to what we did last year I will be pretty happy and if we can jag one rain at the end of August or early September of 15-20mm to help everything go through, that would be bloody good.
"I am not expecting yields like last year but we are still capable of getting 2-2.5 t/ha around here."
Mr Jones said up to 90pc of his property was on "heavy country".
"We have got red loams out the back, then we have red moral and heavy red clay and we have got just a few pockets of what we call light country - but it's not good sandplain country."
While he can't control the weather, Mr Jones said it was always on his mind.
"Yeah it always does, but we are always the eternal optimist aren't we?
"It doesn't grow in the silo so you have got to throw it out there and give it the best chance, so you just roll the dice."