Mr Gall, whose 4000ha farm is divided between cereals, canola and legumes, said the season began with challenges.
“It was a bit of a tough start,” he said.
“In the very dry autumn and dry sowing, we had pretty split germination across the board.
“We lucked out with some later rains and got a germination, and we’ve been not too bad since then. Everything turned a pretty good corner.”
The patchy start meant difficult decisions on management, he said.
“There’s very split germination in the canola which made for some discussions on fungicide programs and when to pull the trigger.
“Timing of applications really was the main thing. But it worked out not too bad, with a mild end of winter. That worked out pretty well in our favour.”
Recent rainfall has kept crops ticking along, with Mr Gall recording about 180mm for the growing season.
“We’ve been surviving hand-to-mouth at the moment with the rainfall,” he said.
“We received 15mm two days ago. That’s definitely keeping us going.”
While conditions have improved, Mr Gall said more rain would be needed to push yields higher.
“They’ll get to maturity now. It’s just whether they get the top-end yield or not,” he said.
“We’re going to need a bit more rain to push the top end, but we’ve got enough moisture to get some sort of a crop at the moment.”
Harvest is expected to start in late November or early December. Most of the crop will be marketed through Melbourne.
“A lot of the canola will go to oil and mostly the wheat will head to port to Melbourne either for stockfeed or offshore,” Mr Gall said.
“It all depends on the grade at this point.”
Disease pressure has been low across the district.
“With not a lot of moisture and sunny days, the disease pressure hasn’t been high.”
Looking ahead, Mr Gall is hopeful for a solid finish.
“We’ll get mid to high yields, but it’s hard to know.
“We’re going to need a nice long and soft spring to secure a good yield. The season’s going as predicted at the moment.”
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