FALLS of as much as 150 millimetres across the North Coast over the past few days have been just what was ordered, kicking off planting of the region's forecast bumper soyben crop and replenshing desperately dry grazing properties.
Croppers across the North Coast had been sitting on thousands of hectares of country worked up for soybeans, desperate for rain with windows for early variety planting closing at Christmas.
For five months rainfall had been unsubstantial and only 10 per cent of the anticipated 12000ha crop from Grafton to the Queensland border is in the ground.
But a flurry of planting is now happening courtesy of the widespread falls.
Likewise, grazing properties - many of which have missed the opportunity for summer crop planting due to the dry - have been given a boost, but experts warn producers still need to be wary of water quality issues arising from the dry and diseases like botulism.
* More in The Land this week.
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