TRACTOR lights are blazing throughout the night as the nation's croppers especially in South Australia and Victoria use the near ideal conditions to get large tracts of ground planted.
Further north, central west NSW has had too much of a good thing to allow large scale plantings, with rain over the past fortnight delaying sowing.
However, farmers there are far from complaining, with rainfall for the opening four months of the year far exceeding 2019 in total, especially for more marginal regions west of the Newell Highway and will soon crank into top gear.
Kaniva, Victoria farmer Sam Eastwood said there had been useful rain over the past fortnight.
On Friday he was held up due to the paddocks being too wet, but said even with the disc seeder system used for planting he would be back on it shortly.
"It really is just ideal, with the disc seeder if it gets too wet it can be a problem, but we've been getting some nice falls which are not holding us up too much but enough to allow things to get up and going," Mr Eastwood, whose farm is in the far west Wimmera near the SA border, said.
When interviewed Mr Eastwood had just finished planting canola.
"It's shaping up to be a really positive year for canola, we've had that early break which we often miss and that really suits canola, it gets established early and seems to miss the worst of the disease."
The positivity was not confined to Victoria.
Peter McMeekin, Grain Brokers Australia, said the turnaround in central-west NSW was 'phenomenal'.
Almost all of the cropping districts have had more than 150 per cent of average rainfall for the three months ending April 30," he said.
"It is excellent news for farmers in the drought-ravaged central-western and north-western areas, many of whom have grown very little grain since the bumper harvest in 2016," Mr McMeekin said.
He said a return to form for Australia's most renowned swinging production zones, which can grow major tonnages in the good years and virtually nothing in the bad, was on the cards and that would mean a big year for NSW overall.
"A record is not impossible if things continue to go well."
The early rain in SA and Victoria has meant growers have a full suite of planting options.
"This year we've got a great opportunity for canola, especially for those in the south of the state in the medium to high rainfall zones that like to grow it," said South Australia Research and Development Institute (SARDI) research scientist Kenton Porker.
"In other areas where they do not grow as much canola they might look at things like long-season wheat," Dr Porker said.
Kent Wooding, general manager at Swan Hill-based Agrivision, said farmers in the Mallee had actually had to hold off.
"Normally we are busy dry sowing prior to the break, this year the break was probably a bit early to get going as planting that early would put some crop types and varieties at a high risk of frost damage," Mr Wooding said.
"This year we've had the earliest start since 2017 and have had to adjust a little."
"People initially used the early break to either plant crops suited to early planting such as hay crop or long season wheat or they got a really good knockdown of weeds."
He said the good summer and autumn rain had also meant residual herbicides had been thoroughly incorporated.
"It means there is no plant-back risk and people can give herbicide tolerant varieties a spell if they want to.
"It's not such a big deal in barley where the Clearfield varieties are just as high a yielding as anything but in wheat it will be good to have the chance of growing the highest yielding lines with no risk."
Mr Wooding said he expected farmers to stick reasonably solidly to existing rotations, but maybe dabble with some of the crops well suited to early planting.
"We'll probably see a bit more canola and people are looking at pulses, whether for hay or for grain, we have the full deck of options this year which is a nice luxury to have."