Thousands of hectares of soybeans are being rushed into the ground across the North Coast following soaking falls of between 80 and 150 millimetres last week.
Registrations of up to 50mm in the North West last week could also promote a late plant of several hundred additional hectares of dryland and irrigated beans.
Initially, a lack of summer storms which normally provide planting rain by November threatened to derail the forecast bumper 12,000-hectare crop from Grafton to the Queensland border, where 90 per cent of soybeans will be planted this season.
Croppers have been sitting on country worked up for the oilseed crop for months – last week’s nick-of-time rain was the best the region had scored in the past five months combined.
Windows for planting early varieties closed at Christmas and before the latest planting flurry, only 10 per cent of the crop had gone in, though most of that country is now also being replanted.
By next week, more than 90pc of the forecast crop would likely be in, North Coast Oilseeds Association president, Paul Fleming, Casino, said.
Likewise, the pre-Christmas rain could double northern inland plantings to meet the forecast 500ha from areas like Moree, Wee Waa and Gunnedah, agronomists said.
Full story in The Land, December 31.
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