HOT ON the heels of the record breaking 2021-22 winter crop, Australian grain producers have had a near ideal start to the 2022 planting season.
Across the country there have been solid opening rains across the majority of the nation's major grain producing region.
The opening break is markedly earlier than the long-term average which has allowed growers the flexibility to either plant early or to target problem weeds with a knockdown herbicide spray, with the early germination meaning they can still plant in a timely manner afterwards.
Australian Crop Forecasters' James Maxwell said the La Nina conditions over summer had led to good rain across the east coast while tropical moisture has fed down into the Western Australian grain belt, with some good falls over late March and early April.
He said the near ideal conditions and high grain prices made it a difficult year to forecast in terms of area planted.
"You'd expect coming off a record plant that planting would be down this year but given things look so good for so many it may not be so cut and dried," Mr Maxwell said.
"Farmers like to stick to set rotations but if there is any room to move they will look to plant those higher value crops, with canola being a prime example of that."
"There has been a lot of talk about farmers maybe scaling back canola as it is more expensive to grow and maybe a little risky but getting such a good start helps lower that risk."
"Cereals are also likely to come down, you'd expect by around 4 per cent or so but this early rain will certainly give people confidence to plant that extra paddock if they were thinking about it."
Mr Maxwell said only parts of eastern Western Australia, some of South Australia and southern and western Victoria were drier than average.
And he said with many of these areas in higher rainfall zone regions farmers there were relatively confident they would receive sufficient rain to get crops out the ground at some stage.
"NSW is fantastic once again, southern Queensland looks good and now we have recently seen good rain in Central Queensland," Mr Maxwell said.
"There are some patches in Western Australia that are a little dry, but as a rule things look good there, with good falls in some of the traditionally drier areas."
"Eastern South Australia and western Victoria are slightly dry, but other parts of both those states are looking very good, and even where it is dry most farmers should have had enough rain to get crops out the ground.
"From now on the crop's moisture needs are fairly limited until the days start lengthening towards late winter."
He said high input costs had been a talking point but farmers had worked around it with soil testing potentially allowing them to cut upfront phosphorus applications slightly and nitrogen decisions being delayed until later in the year.
Mr Maxwell said the early start meant crops were very advanced for this time of year.
"There are already reports of dual purpose crops in southern NSW being grazed and farmers are getting out onto post emergent spray programs already, which is amazing given its only just ticked over into May.
He said that while there were concerns about excess wet at this stage it was not a major issue.
"It is more an issue surrounding management and paddock access for spraying or spreading than losing crop at present."
Start the day with all the big news in agriculture! Sign up below to receive our daily Farmonline newsletter.