The increasing likelihood of a late autumn break is weighing heavily on the minds of those within the WA grains sector.
Much of Australia's largest grain producing state has seen markedly below average rainfall since spring, with isolated pockets of storm-driven rainfall in the eastern wheatbelt the only exception.
WA Grains Group (WAGG) chairman and Mid West farmer Alastair Falconer said there was still ample time for the season to recover but cautioned farmers were becoming concerned about the dry conditions.
"The average timing of the autumn break for WA is not until around May 10, so we are still a way off that yet, but the medium term 14 day outlook does not have a lot of promise for rain so it doesn't look likely we'll get a lot of crop up before that date," Mr Falconer, who farms at Coorow, between Perth and Geraldton, said.
"The in-crop rainfall is the key in our cropping systems so there's still well and truly the chance for things to turnaround but we do like to get the crop up early and allow it to use every drop of rain we get during the season, especially when we don't traditionally get big volumes of spring rainfall here."
Mr Falconer said the dry sowing program, which accounts for a large proportion of WA plantings now, was continuing but added farmers would soon start to contemplate tinkering with their rotations.
"If it stays dry we may see some canola dropped and some more cereals brought in, much of the canola is already in, but for those who wait until there is rain on the horizon they might now be thinking that a cereal is a safer option."
The Grains Industry of Western Australia had a similar message in its April crop report.
Report author Michael Lamond said that while the projected plantings of 8.6 million hectares was in line with last year's 8.5m ha there could be a change in crop composition if the dry conditions remained.
"Dry sowing of canola, lupins and vetch is underway in many regions of the state, with growers planning to swap to dry sowing cereals when they reach around 50 per cent or less of their planned canola hectares sown," Mr Lamond said in the report.
"This is a subtle change from recent dry sowing strategies, where a larger percentage of the planned canola crop would be sown dry before switching to cereals."
"With virtually no sub-soil moisture across the grain belt, except for the central eastern fringes, growers are holding back on committing larger areas of canola due to the risk associated with a late break to the season.".
He agreed with Mr Falconer that there was no cause for panic as yet, but said most farmers were approaching planting cautiously given the ongoing dry.
Mr Falconer said last year had been a severe drought in his area and that farmers were conservative in their plans.
"Input costs are bringing the cost of production up, we only had 115mm for the year last year, so farmers are really taking a cautious approach to planting."
"We've moved to systems where a lot of crop goes in dry, which used to be seen as a bit risky, and that is still definitely happening, but farmers are weighing up whether they want to be planting those more expensive crops like canola given what's happening with the weather at present."
"There is no reason things can't turn around from here, but equally if we get another month or six weeks of dry weather we'll start to see yield potential dipping, it's just a matter of hoping we get a good general break sooner rather than later."
GIWA had 2024-25 WA wheat plantings at 4.96m ha, canola at 1.57m ha and barley at 1.46m ha.
The report said Isolated areas of the eastern wheatbelt that received storm-driven rain earlier in the autumn are the only areas with plant available moisture in the soil profile.