AgFax Rice - Louisiana
by AgFax Media LLC, AgFax.com
OVERVIEW
A limited amount of draining has started in Texas.
Insect activity in southwest Louisiana continues to take one odd turn after another. See comments by Dustin Harrell.
Rice water weevil numbers were high in the first sample pulled in south Arkansas. It's too soon to know if that's a trend or an anomaly.
Hotter and more humid weather is pushing disease potential in parts of our coverage area. A bit more sheath blight is being reported in Texas and south Louisiana. Blast is evident in scattered locations, too. No big surges are being reported with either disease.
CROP REPORTS
Harold Lambert, Independent Consultant, Innis, Louisiana: "A good bit of our rice is in stem elongation. That's mostly hybrid rice. The youngest rice – which isn't a hybrid – followed crawfish and is just now going to permanent flood."
Richard Griffing, Griffing Consulting, LLC, Monterey, Louisiana: "About 90% of our rice is at flood and mostly hitting green ring. Of the remaining 10%, a little of it is 2-leaf rice that just received its first herbicide. Most of our rice was in an area that didn't get as much rain as other parts of the state. So, we could plant a good deal of acreage early when other people were held up. But those later rains kept us from getting levees up as soon as we would have wanted, plus we had to pick our times to apply herbicides with other crops around. But we're making good headway now."
Dustin Harrell, Louisiana Rice Extension Specialist, LSU Rice Research Station, Crowley: "The bulk of our rice in southwest Louisiana is just coming out of the boot. Some sheath blight is starting to show up. That includes a couple of fields of a hybrid, CLXL 745. Hybrids are pretty resistant to blast and sheath blight, of course, but we're into a weather pattern that really promotes sheath blight. A couple of those fields will be treated with a fungicide.
"Up until now, disease has been relatively quiet, but we've now had 10 days of rain and humid conditions, so it's not surprising to find sheath blight now. We're seeing leaf blast just here and there, nothing exceptional.
"Insect pressure has been tremendous. South American rice miners (SARM) are turning up on a wide basis. Typically, it's an early season pest, but this year it's moving into fields in the late reproductive stage. It's also now moving into later rice, like fields behind crawfish. Usually, it's hard to find. This year, though, it's difficult to find a field that doesn't have SARM.
"We don't have treatment recommendations for SARM. Since it goes down into the whorl, SARM is hard to reach anyway, and that's one reason it's also referred to as the whorl maggot. As far as we know, any effect on yield is minimal, if at all. But we've never had this much pressure on a wide scale, so we're in unknown territory as far as potential loss goes.
"Grasshopper pressure also has built in the earlier heading rice, and several consultants have commented on this. The grasshoppers aren't just eating the leaves, they're also consuming the unfilled grain as it comes out of the boot. Typically, we only find grasshoppers on field edges, but consultants are seeing them spring up as they move deeper and deeper into fields. In some cases this may lead to a pyrethroid application, especially if stink bugs are in the field. In terms of insects, this has turned into a weird year, whether that's due to the weather or something else.
"A reminder: our 2016 rice field day will be June 29 at the LSU AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station."