Nhill, Kaniva and Yannock farmers had a bumper sowing season

Western Victorian farmers are wrapping up their sowing programs with sodden soil and new ideas to bring the best out of their farm production.

Father and son farmers Peter and Des Clarke, Nhill, have sold their 650-head Merino ewe flock to create a stronger cropping opportunity after a bumper start to their sowing program.

"We just want to concentrate on cropping, we won't have to compromise," Peter said.

"There's a lot of other reasons, it's hard to get shearers and it's a lot of time and effort if people aren't around to move the sheep, but we have massive weed issues.

"We're doing so much weed control that the sheep are contributing to the problem rather than fixing it."

He said the sheep left the farm on Saturday and he hoped the flock would average $130 a head.

Peter said despite their profitability, the change would allow them to focus solely on their cropping and help control their weeds.

The Clarkes planted Commodus barley for the first time in April on their clay-sand property which borders the Little Desert National Park.

Peter said he was rapt with high soil-moisture levels which set up their land for a promising start to winter.

"I would love to have this season ... for sowing every year if we could," he said.

Their sowing program includes canola, vetch, barley, lupins, wheat and lentils.

The Clarke's Nhill property has recorded 96.5 millimetres of rain this year so far, and 37.5mm for June.

AgriBusiness Consulting Group assessor Marty Colbert, Nhill, said a rain system travelling south from Broome, NSW, could bring the Nhill region about another 20mm of rain within the next fortnight.

"I can't see why this season can't be a 10 out of 10 to be honest," Mr Colbert said.

"We've got our soil tests, we've got our fertiliser plan, we know how much urea we're going to have to put on, we're already up to our second spread in some paddocks.

"Everything is lining up."

Meanwhile, Kaniva sheep grazier Steven Hobbs changed his focus to livestock, which returned a greater profit on his frost-prone land.

He manages about 1200 sheep including replacements, and uses his paddocks for rye, lucerne, barley, oats, vetch, peas, mustard and tillage radish.

"I'd say [this year] is in the top 20 per cent," Mr Hobbs said.

"We've had green feed all the way through our lambing.

"Lambs were dropping onto green feed which normally doesn't happen at this time of the year."

He said they redesigned lambing paddocks as part of their enterprise with electric fencing for fox control.

He said he dedicated a block to planting cover crops with a mixture of winter-active plants, and another block for perennial crops.

"We're quietly optimistic, we have a moisture reserve and a profile but for a long, long time we've been running on the growing season's rainfall," he said.

"It's the first year that I haven't sown any cover crop, I'll go through and be undersowing some vetch.

"Last year we had water damage so we bailed the oats which shook during windrowing and all of that seed has germinated now.

"Now we have all of this beautiful feed."

Yanac mixed-farmer Michael Dart said his crops were thriving after they received about 27mm of rain in the last week.

He said his program was similar to the past year, which included vetch for sheep feed, as well as canola, beans, wheat, barley and peas.

Mr Dart manages 2000 ewes and is marking about 400 lambs this week.

"We're at about average [rainfall]," he said.

"We were worried about the dry spell but then it started raining and it hasn't stopped."

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He said an ongoing job included red spider management, which had started populating in his crops.

"It depends on the weather, some years [pests] do well and other years we don't have any troubles," he said.

"You've always got a few red spiders around."

The pest, red-legged earth mites, are active in cool weather between April and November.

Mr Dart said they started sowing on Anzac Day and had one paddock of barley left to sow.