Mallee Sustainable Farming (MSF) treasurer Ron Hards said he had already noted summer mice activity in his paddocks at Yarrara in the central Millewa.

“There isn’t as much food about as last year, when the heads were knocked out by the rain, but there is still plenty of feed about, many parts of the Mallee and the Millewa had an above-average year.”

He said growers needed to monitor mice numbers to ensure there was not a build-up prior to sowing.

“There was a fair bit of damage done at sowing last year, people who had to resow crops.

“With crops like canola, if you sow on time, by the time you have to resow, it’s a month later than it should go in, and that can be pretty risky up here.”

He said he had noted some activity recently, in spite of the fact he had aerial baited in September last year.

“They don’t do a lot during the hot weather, but there are a few burrows about.”

“Farmers may wish to consider their management options for mice at this time of

year and how they can protect their crops when they sow them”, said Mr Hards.

“Based on the availability of bait in 2011, farmers may need to arrange baits early if

they intend to bait prior to seeding.”

Mr Hards predicted pricing would once again be a sticking point, after last year where many farmers complained about the expense of the registered MouseOff bait.

“The biggest concern is the price of the bait, at $10 a hectare.

“With grain prices at around $150/t up here, it’s a big cut in your margins when crops are generally less than 2t/ha.

“We will be calling on the authorities to make sure the local baiting stations are up and running again.”

“We can’t continue to support the price from Animal Control Technologies when we can see it can be done for around $3/ha with the baiting stations, its time we looked after ourselves.”