At Breeza Station, farmer Andrew Pursehouse said the summer crops have been enjoying the recent rain on the Breeza Plains.

“It’s been a great start to the summer crops,” he said. 

“We get plenty of bites of the cherry.”

This year, the Pursehouses have planted 50 hectares of dryland corn, 600 hectares of sorghum, and 700 hectares of cotton.

“We did the dryland corn and it fared very well compared to the sorghum so we’re experimenting again this year,” Mr Pursehouse said. 

Sorghum was planted about six weeks ago and is “all up and away”.

Both dryland and irrigated cotton have been planted at Breeza Station.

Mr Pursehouse said he is waiting to see if it will be worthwhile to plant mung beans in December. Mung beans are a food staple in China and India.

“This year the market’s back a bit for mung beans but the last two years it’s been very strong,” Mr Pursehouse said.

On the other side of the Kamilaroi Highway at “Drayton”, John Hamparsum is also considering mung beans and already has cotton in the ground.

“We’ve got nearly 700 hectares [of cotton] – all on irrigated country,” he said.

“I’d normally plant a little bit less but the grain prices weren’t good enough to encourage me to grow grain this year.

“With the rain we’ve been getting on and off, it’s been cruising along quite nicely.”

“It might be one of the years where we end up with too much rain,” Mr Hamparsum said.

“The season’s shaping up to become something big, I think.”