THE rumble of tractors has been heard across the grainbelt, with growers around the State getting into the annual hustle and bustle of deep ripping, ploughing, spreading lime and spraying.
Meanwhile, those lucky enough to receive solid rainfall have again been firing up seeders.
The recent rainfall across large sections of the grainbelt have instigated a flurry of activity and in some areas, particularly in the eastern regions, quite a few hectares of canola have already been sown.
According to the most recent Grain Industry Association of WA crop report, released last Friday, it hasn't all been smiles and there have been headaches from supply chain issues, fertiliser costs, mice plagues and snails in the south.
Despite that, the recent positive outlook on prices has seen potential programs stretch to accommodate an increase in the canola, wheat and barley area compared to what was originally planned when growers and agronomists drew up their paddock plans over summer.
Crop report author Michael Lamond said the end of March and beginning of April saw multiple rain events kick off some areas with a bang, driven by moisture dragged down from north east systems and multiple low pressure systems.
"Patchy rainfall has seen some necks of the woods such as the northern, eastern and Great Southern regions receive over 100 millimetres in the past few weeks," Mr Lamond said.
"Whilst other areas in the west-central Kwinana, the central and southern Esperance and the west Albany port zones have had just a smattering of drops."
Those who haven't already gone for it hammer and tong, will likely get into seeding in the upcoming weeks, however not everyone will be rushing into it.
A hot dry summer for most areas has seen a wait and see approach taken by those who just don't have the subsoil moisture or canola seed reserves to cover a false break.
Many of those in the medium and higher rainfall zones in the central and northern regions who can afford to wait, are comfortable in doing so, preferring to get a few knockdown sprays on to take the pressure off in-crop applications.
On the other hand, Mr Lamond said dedicated canola growers in the higher rainfall south coastal regions were sowing canola now to utilise excess subsoil moisture carried over from last year.
"Those in the low rainfall eastern regions that received good rains are also sowing now to capitalise on the opportunity provided by current high canola prices and the effect it can have on overall farm profit," he said.
"This is despite previous years having shown canola sown late-March to early-April rarely out-yields that which was sown in mid-April."
At this time of year, the models are not great at predicting weather events, but the rest of April looks likely to be dry with lingering La Nia effects causing some uncertainty.
According to Mr Lamond, the uncertainty about future rainfall events and a less than positive medium-term outlook for rain has tipped the scales for those who had planned to sow canola in the low rainfall areas.
Most growers in those areas who have enough subsoil moisture to ensure their canola can hang on through a dry April and May, already have, or will have within the next week, a big proportion of their canola in the ground.
"Overall, the strong prices for canola, wheat and barley are not likely to have a huge impact for most growers on enterprise mix, other than the near certain equalling or increase in the record canola area from 2021," Mr Lamond said.
"The early rain has ensured the canola area will remain up and there won't be a swing to more pasture, lupins and fallow as was expected to occur in the absence of early rains."
A month ago, it was likely the total crop area would contract back from 9.2 million hectares in 2021 to about 8.7m ha this year.
However, the recent rain and good commodity prices have offset the increase in costs to some extent and given it is still very early in the season, the total crop area for WA looks likely to be close to that for 2021.
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