DARKE Peak farmer Ash Butterfield started sowing in time for the traditional Anzac Day start this week, with plans to plant at least 2800 hectares of crop by the end of May.
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Starting with canola, Mr Butterfield put about 200ha into the ground using a 50-foot DBS bar and a 12,000 litre Flexi-Coil air cart towed behind a 9400 John Deere tractor.
With his campaign in full swing, Mr Butterfield has also already managed to get started on 200ha of lupins and 200ha of vetch and barley.
Despite a swift start this year, Mr Butterfield was one of many farmers on the EP affected by the January 2022 storm, which dropped a year's worth of rain in three days across the region.
With significant portions of his paddocks damaged, Mr Butterfield spent countless hours last year repairing the destruction.
"It took a lot of work to get it back the way it was, but it is all back in production and will all be cropped this year," he said.
"It also left us with a lot of carry over moisture from that rain and rain throughout the year, so that's allowed us to get in straight away and start seeding.
"We should get a bit of rain on Wednesday (yesterday), which will make sure we're ready to go for wheat and barley pretty soon."
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Mr Butterfield said he expected to put in about 700ha of barley and 1500ha of wheat.
"Last year we put in new varieties in Commodus barley and Calibre wheat, which performed well for us," he said.
"On the barley and wheat last year, we were averaging about 2.7 tonnes a hectare and about 1.4t/ha on the canola.
"We're only using Commodus now for barley, but we'll use Vixen wheat as well this year plus a little bit of Sceptre left over that we'll be taking out of our rotation after this year."
Mr Butterfield said he expected his seeding program to be finished by the end of May.
