AgFax Rice - Louisiana

By AgFax Media LLC, AgFax.com

OVERVIEW 

Harvest has started across a wider part of the Midsouth, although rains in the lower Delta put things on hold.

In the coastal belt of Texas and southwest Louisiana, harvest is at or past the halfway point on a wide basis.

Stink bugs remain a nagging issue in later rice in parts of Arkansas.

LOUISIANA CROP REPORTS

Dustin Harrell, Louisiana Rice Extension Specialist, LSU Rice Research Station, Crowley:

"This week, we're moving past the midway point on main-crop rice harvest in southwest Louisiana. The weather has been much nicer this week compared to last week when it rained pretty much every afternoon.

"Yields continue to look good, although we're seeing just a very small decline. (Editor's Note: Connect to more yield data in Links section.) I still think this will be a really nice crop and we may approach that record yield set in 2013, which was 45 barrels an acre. That's 7,300 pounds or 162 bushels an acre. I don't know that we'll hit that but the trend looks like we could come really close.

"I have no reports of rice being harvested in northeast Louisiana but I suspect that a limited amount might have started."