BY THE end of last summer's big wet, grain growers across Victoria knew one thing was certain: There would be rust in the next crop.

Wallup's Rob McRae said the rust threat had been the decider in his wheat and barley varieties.

But like all things agricultural, Rob admits there were swings and roundabouts.

"We have planted all 900ha of our wheat area to correll," he said.

"It is an excellent wheat for rust resistance, but the trade-off is there are some issues with grain weight.

"But it really is the only strain on the market which is good for stripe rust so we have gone with it and are happy with the results to date."

Rob now farms with son, Alexander, who has returned to the family farm at Wallup, north of Horsham, after completing his education. His father, Ian, still lends a hand at peak times.

Rob said despite his planning, he still had to spray about a third of his wheat with fungicide because it became rust-affected.

He also sprayed all 200ha of barley for leaf rust.

Though leaf rust is not as common, he said with this year's prime conditions it has become a problem.

"We have also put a fungicide over our chick peas and lentils," Rob said.

"In the chick peas, we used a few varieties and some needed fungicides to protect them as well," he said.

"The lentils also got a fungicide at canopy close.

"The chick pea strain genesis 090 has good resistance, but right now we are going to spray all the pulses for pod protection, and will be including an insecticide for heliothis moth."

Rob said the stripe rust showed up in his later-sown wheat and though it was not much with the prime conditions, they were taking no chances.

The wheat was sprayed in late August, and rain in the past week has been overdue relief after what Rob described as "a very dry" winter and spring.

He said his crops have been saved by the excellent subsoil moisture from summer and the early plantings looked good.

"Another 20mm would not go astray, but we start harvest in three to four weeks and things are looking pretty good," he said.

"We do 25 per cent wheat, 25 per cent barley, 25 per cent canola and pulses and the balance is a long fallow, with green manure.

"The fallow is where we are after locking in some moisture and getting nitrogen back into the soil.

"We go in the order of a medic-clover base pasture, green manure, then canola, wheat, pulse, barley and nitrogen back to the start."

Rob said it was ideal to maintain that strategy, but in the past few years he had been forced to go almost pure cereal because in the dry conditions it was the least risky.

"We have mostly heavy clay/loam soils and when we have an average 400mm rainfall, it all goes to plan.

"In the past 10 years, we have been managing to get about half the rain we expect, and last year's canola is the first we had grown in nine years," he said.

"This year we have about 200ha planted and it is doing pretty well."

The McRaes spread gypsum every few years, which they rate as a viable sulphur replacement.

Rob said all their work has shown its value on their 1300ha compared with the 400ha of lease land they also run.

He said they also deal with the standard red-legged earth mite, which they are on top of, and the recent mouse plague.

"We baited for mice, but had nowhere near the problems some others had," he said.

"Last year it was the same. We escaped them to a large degree. We have found using a prickle chain behind the seeder, which seemed to work a lot better than using press wheels, which the mice love because it is easy to get at the seed.

"Brome grass is a bit of an issue, and we have a little bit of wild oats, ryegrass and marshmallow, but it is all under control."

In addition to cropping, the McRaes run a crossbred lamb program, targeting a turnoff which dresses out at 30kg carcase weight, and also operate a bed and breakfast from the homestead built in 1912.

The family has been on the property since 1870.

Excluding last-minute disasters, it is looking at knocking over another good harvest starting in a couple of weeks.

That should make for a happy Christmas before the next round of hard yakka starts in the New Year.