AgFax Rice - Louisiana

by AgFax Media LLC, AgFax.com

OVERVIEW

Draining has started in southwest Louisiana on a very limited basis. In parts of coastal Texas more rice is headed and the first combines could start running in a month, maybe sooner, based on a couple of earlier reports.

Insect activity varies.

  • Rice stink bugs are lingering in parts of the Midsouth where rice hasn't started heading yet. 
  • Some treatments for stink bugs and/or grasshoppers have been necessary in south Louisiana.
  • The South American rice miner continues to turn up in Louisiana's southern parishes and has been moving into later-planted fields. 
  • Armyworms are being reported in Mississippi's south Delta rice. 
  • Rice water weevils core samples in Arkansas are turning up moderate to high numbers of larvae.

Diseases are becoming more apparent but no train wrecks are in the picture, based on this week's calls. Sheath blight and leaf blast are becoming a bit more evident in places and some cercospora and panicle blight are out there, as well.

Louisiana's annual rice field day in Crowley is set for next Wednesday. 

CROP REPORTS

Dustin Harrell, Louisiana Rice Extension Specialist, LSU Rice Research Station, Crowley: "I've gotten the first report of a few fields being drained. That would be some of the very earliest rice, so we're maybe a couple of weeks from the first harvest.

"A little more disease is turning up. I was in some CL111 that was showing cercospora and bacterial panicle blight. The application timing was right, but there was a strip through the field where the rice was a little more mature, and the disease was more prevalent there.

"Sheath blight has increased considerably over the last 10 to 14 days. It's nothing alarming, just normal levels. But sheath blight has been so quiet that it was a little surprising when it finally took off. I also just came out of a field in south Louisiana with phosphorous deficiency, and that rice hasn't gone to flood yet.

"We're seing some South American rice miner (SARM) activity in late-planted rice and SARM still seems to be prevalent throughout south Louisiana. It's uncanny how this insect is showing up in 2016. Stink bug pressure is still a little high in this part of the state. Some fields with either grasshoppers, stink bugs or some combination have been treated. More applications are probably coming next week as additional fields reach threshold levels.

"In north Louisiana a lot of that rice has gone to flood in the last week or it's heading towards it.

"A quick reminder: our annual rice field day is next Wednesday, June 29, at the research center at Crowley. The first trailers pull out at 7:30 a.m." 

 

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