DESPITE a couple of 30 plus degree days in the middle of September, the Fitzsimons' crops in Buntine are holding on.

Shaun Fitzsimons is a fourth-generation farmer who runs the 7000 hectare property in partnership with his parents Ross and Lyn, and fiancé Rebecca Wallis.

The business has roughly 5800ha of arable land, 4100ha of which is cropped, while 1700ha is kept aside for sheep, however that will likely change next year as they plan to transition away from livestock.

Currently there are roughly 1200 ewes, 1200 lambs, plus about 40 head of rams and wethers which the Fitzsimons are looking to sell between now and harvest.

"The last three years we've been feeding sheep all through seeding and the paddocks are becoming bare," Ross said.

"In January and February, all the way through to the start of seeding, we're not getting the rainfall for growing sheep feed.

"We're checking sheep during seeding, which is one of the busiest times of year, but we're also trying to feed them which can be a really big job."

The Fitzsimons plan to take their sheep to the Elders sheep sale in Moora at the end of October, but together they will be keeping an eye on the markets.

"We'll keep checking and see what's happening as it can be a risk to put them all in the one sale," Shaun said.

While the plan is to transition to 100 per cent cropping in 2021, this year there was 4100ha planted, with over 3000ha of that going to wheat.

There was also 350ha of canola, 250ha of barley, which was reduced as a result of the Chinese barley tariffs, and 280ha of lupins.

"We did cut back on the barley a bit, some of it was in dry, but after the tariffs announcement we only put in one more paddock where the sheep were locked up for coverage," Ross said.

"We probably only cut back about 150ha in the end as most of it was already in."

This year, the Fitzsimons have planted the most varieties of wheat that they have had for a while as they bulked up on three new varieties in 2019.

Havoc, Vixen and Devil are the new varieties which are aiming to be a replacement for Mace, which they are still growing a bit of, while Zen is their noodle variety.

"Last year Vixen was a stand out, it was about half a tonne better than the other varieties, but we had less than 4ha in," Shaun said.

"We didn't go down the Scepter line but we needed to update our varieties as Mace is getting a bit old in the grand scheme of things and we need to phase it out.

"It sounds like Devil is comparable to Scepter, we've been told you don't have them both, so we picked one over the other, but we haven't made our mind up on Havoc yet."

For their barley, the 250ha went to Litmus this year after an attempted transition to Buff went a bit haywire in 2019.

"We put the Buff onto a wheat stubble and the self sown wheat grew better than the actual sown barley," Shaun said.

"When we went to harvest it there was more wheat in our barley, a few farmers around our area had the same problem."

"But with the small program this year, it didn't concern us too much as we're mainly growing barley in our poorer paddocks with saline issues anyway."

The soils across the Fitzsimons property varies greatly, consisting of everything from sand over gravel right the way to heavy red soils, with the best country out near west Buntine on what they refer to as their pear tree country.

Those heavier soils make seeding time an interesting experience every year as the Fitzsimons can't get into them unless it's rained because it dries up too hard.

Because of that, they're seeding tends to be a bit stop-start, with some paddocks dry seeded and the rest left until the rain comes.

"Because we're not 100pc croppers at the moment, we've normally only got a certain number of paddocks that we can seed dry because of the soil types," Ross said.

"We did as much as we could dry, including some pasture paddocks, then we had to wait for the rain to come, once that happened we had just over a week left.

"Cropping 4100ha, with the equipment we've got, we can do pretty quickly which allows us to take a week off and wait for the rain."

The opening rain for the season came at the end of May, after the big wind event which affected many farmers, including the Fitzsimons.

It was mainly the lighter soils out west of Buntine which copped it, while those soils do perform better, they are also more likely to blow in the wind.

Originally they thought it might be necessary to reseed the canola on those paddocks, but in the end the decision was made not to.

"Dad was doing plant counts every second day, the bare minimum is seven plants per square metre and we were just making that," Shaun said.

"The main reason we decided not to reseed was because we had planted Roundup Ready and we were looking for good weed control, we knew if we went back in with TT we might lose that opportunity to get clean crops.

"We'd already done the first spray of propyzamide, so we would have only been able to put it back into canola.

"It looks like we made the right decision to not reseed as it's actually looking alright and we will get a crop from it."

Rainfall wise they have received 186mm for the year, including 115mm in the growing season and 60mm of summer rain in February and March.

"Our averages have come down a bit over the last five to 10 years, but the long-term average is around 281mm while the short-term average would be 288mm, so we're down on that either way," Ross said.

"118mm for the growing season is quite low, in the really bad year in 2017 we had 113 but no summer rainfall, so at least this year we've had some of that this year."

Despite the lack of rainfall, the crops are looking reasonable, although the season will likely be below average.

For a few days in the middle of September, temperatures soared above 30 degrees and similar temperatures are expected to keep coming over the next couple of months.

"The crops are at a reasonably advanced stage so we are hoping they have enough kick in them to get them over the line," Shaun said.

"We're looking at a bit below average now, we're not expecting anymore rain and it's going to keep getting hotter.

"We're not gaining any more yield, so hopefully we can hold on to what we've got and not go too far backwards."

Looking to 2021, there will be challenges as the Fitzsimons move to a 100pc cropping program.

"I think the biggest challenge will be the areas that we only crop because we have to," Ross said.

"Those poorer paddocks that we had been keeping out for sheep feed and only cropping strategically, we're going to have to get our head around how to improve them.

"We have started investigating a Reefinator but that's a big expense which we're going to have to weigh up."

They have also started thinking about the potential weed issues that might arise in a few years, with their agronomist recently suggesting the potential of an oats rotation.

"We've never considered oats before, but we were talking with our agro about what we could use as a rotation crop," Shaun said.

"If you're looking like you'd get two tonne from it you could cut and bale it, but if you're not going to get that yield, it can be sprayed out and you could start again fresh the next year."