Western Australia's big dry continues down in Esperance, where seeding was cranking up this week at Sanderson Farms west of Grass Patch and at Varley.
John and Desiree Sanderson, with John's parents Danny and Judy, will sow 6000 hectares in 2024, of which 1000ha is sharefarmed - and it will be dry seeded.
The Sanderson's average long-term rainfall is 380 millimetres, but this has not been received for several years.
Last year was one of the driest on record, with only 180mm received during the growing season at their Grass Patch property and 160mm at their Varley farm.
"This was almost 200mm down on previous years," Mr Sanderson said.
"The saving grace last year - which we don't have this year - is that we were following an extremely wet year in 2022 and I think we capitalised on some left over soil moisture."
To date this year, there has been 80mm in the gauge at the Varley property - mostly falling in February and early March - and 30mm at Grass Patch, including 12mm in January.
"Grass Patch is the driest I have ever seen it and all the forecasts are for the dry conditions to continue," Mr Sanderson said.
"Last year was a bit the same, in that we got 30mm at Easter and then it didn't rain until the end of May.
"We put in our whole seeding program dry for the first time ever last year and the finish was terrible as well."
Mr Sanderson said, surprisingly, the canola still yielded over one tonne per hectare at Grass Patch and 1.2t/ha at Varley, and cereals went between 1.6 and 2.2t/ha at Grass Patch.
He said he would be using the same rotation this year of canola, faba beans, wheat and lupins.
"We were going to put all of the canola program in at Grass Patch, but we have decided to sow some at Varley as well to spread the risk," Mr Sanderson said.
Last week, the Sandersons started seeding with a 20ha trial of Mohawk wheat.
This is a new quick winter variety with a similar growth habit and maturity to Longsword that is good for early-break scenarios.
They then moved on to 4520P canola, of which they plan to sow 500ha, and wheat planting will start around Anzac Day (Thursday, April 25) - or earlier if it is still dry.
The Sandersons are a Case IH family and have a 4450 Patriot sprayer, Quadtrac 600 tractor and an 18 metre Morris C2 contour bar with 30 centimetre spacings.
Canola is being sown at 5-10mm deep and cereals will be sown at a depth of about 50mm.
Fertiliser comes from Nutrien and CSBP and a blend is applied at 50-60kg/ha, along with 60-100 litres of liquid nitrogen.
"We now just need moisture big time," Mr Sanderson said.
"The little that we received during the summer months has completely gone out of the soil."
