Josh Buerckner farms with his wife Jenny, and their four children, and the family grows wheat, barley, canola, legumes, grain and oats across 1821 ha, where they also run about 2000 merino ewes.
“We put the crops in on time and in good moisture and they have continued to grow through winter,” he said.
“The crops are running a couple weeks ahead of schedule.
“I haven't seen them better.”
Despite the crops growing quicker than expected, Mr Buerckner hoped to see the rainfall continue until the end of October.
“We've had 400 mm for the calendar year and about 250 mm for the growing season,” he said.
“We had 60 mm in March, which kicked off some pasture growth and we got our grazing crops going in mid-March.
“That’s not for a couple of months (when it becomes detrimental).
“It can keep coming and if we get an average September and an average October, we will be in for a good season.”
While an average September and October period will be ideal, Mr Buerckner said it did come with some risks.
“With the wet spring forecast, we have to look out for fungal diseases in our cereals, canola and pulses.”
Despite wanting more rain to fall in the next couple of months, Mr Buerckner's preferences would have been very different if more rain had fallen during winter.
“We were lucky we had a drier May, June, July period,” he said.
“If we had have got average rainfall in that period, we would have been too wet up here for sure.”
Looking forward, Mr Buerckner was hopeful for minimal frosts during the rest of the growing season and for prices to hold up when he markets them at harvest time.
Advanced Ag Shepparton agronomist Stephen O'Connor, who covers a 150 km radius around Shepparton, including the towns of Dookie, Corop, Nathalia and Euroa, agreed that farmers would be looking for reliable rainfall and minimal frosts in the next two months.
“It's all looking really good compared to last year,” he said.
“I wouldn't call it the wettest year, but it's probably an above average year and the rain is falling at the right time.
Despite a much better season, Mr O'Connor said some farmers still had issues with germination.
“There has been a few issues with germination for canola and cereals with the heavy rain that occurred,” he said.
“Earlier sown crops have performed better but even though there was some issues with rainfall, the rest of the cereal crops have got up and away.”
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