Ag Fax: Midsouth Rice
By Owen Taylor
AgFax
The coastal rice crop continues to progress, maybe even faster than might be expected. The earliest harvest could begin in less than three weeks in parts of Texas and southwest Louisiana. The region also could be on track for more ratoon acres, barring some drastic event.
Great growing weather has settled over much of the Rice Belt. Conditions are dry, sunny and hot across a wide swath of our coverage area. With all this solar energy, plants are humming along, and drier weather will help suppress disease.
More Midsouth rice is going to flood. The one hitch right now is lack of rainfall to help bring along late-planted fields that haven't gone to flood yet.
CROP REPORTS
Harold Lambert, Independent Consultant, Ventress, Louisiana
"We have some late production rice that is up to a stand now. It had been in crawfish, so the farmers had to do a little field work ahead of planting.
"A small amount of early-planted production rice is at flood, and it's at a four-inch panicle (as of 6/15). On the older-planted rice, we're not at the boot stage yet. I have some row rice that's at about the one-inch panicle stage.
"My oldest soybeans are probably at R5, and we've already put out fungicides on those fields. A lot of our other soybeans are just at R3 and R4, and those younger fields will receive a fungicide this week.
"We almost had a couple of trap crop situations where we've found stink bugs, but redbanded stink bugs have been pretty scarce. That's going to change, but we're thankful for Mother Nature's reprieve.
"We do have some dryland beans with shallow root systems because they were so wet for so long. Now, we've been dry for the last week or two. With their shallow root systems, those soybeans will start showing stress soon.
"My oldest corn is dented with a 20% starch line.
"Most of my corn is nowhere near any threat from disease, but I have had to treat a very few acres of my oldest corn for southern rust. It's like a race to see if this fungus will develop and take leaf area away from the crop before the plant completes kernel development."
Hank Jones, RHJ Ag Services, Winnsboro, Louisiana
"In rice, we're past green ring on most of the crop and are moving to green ring on much of the rest. A few acres of paddy rice are just going to flood and we're putting water down permanently with row rice.
"The biggest issue we've had in the row rice has been in fields with heavy clay. We could move water down fields but not across them. That left us with some light streaking where there wasn't enough water to soak in the early urea. We've made supplemental applications ahead of some of the rains to make sure we can get those streaks out.
"No major disease threats in rice so so far, and I think I have some of the cleanest rice this year, too. Rains have been well timed, as well.
"Redbanded stink bugs (RBSB) have started appearing in soybeans. The older the beans get, the more RBSB I find. I'm not doing any widespread sprays yet because they're not at threshold, but RBSB are certainty around. It's early in the year for me to be seeing so many, but I expect to have a large influx here in about 10 days. I don't want to scare anybody, but it's probably going to be a bad situation for late-planted beans in July through September."
Dustin Harrell, Louisiana Rice Extension Specialist, LSU Rice Research Station, Crowley
"The bulk of south Louisiana's rice is in the heading stage, and it's time now to begin scouting for disease and for rice stink bugs. Also, start thinking about the ratoon crop and optimizing yields if you plan to produce a second crop. Applying gibberellic acid increases ratoon averages 60% of the time, research shows. It takes approximately a 4 gram/acre rate applied during the milk stage.
"That's an inexpensive input, plus it can be paired with a pyrethroid if you're treating for stink bugs. Also, rates higher than 4 grams don't show any increase over and above that recommended rate.
"The crop in southwest Louisiana looks excellent. Yield potential is there, and this current run of dry weather will reduce disease pressure during the crop's critical period. Beyond that, nighttime temperatures aren't excessive. For right now, the weather is perfect for filling out grain. Let's just hope all this holds.
"The crop is running 7 to 10 days earlier than normal due to warmer temperatures in March. Highs were easily 10 degrees above average, and at times they were hitting the upper 80s and low 90s. With those conditions, it doesn't take water-seeded rice long to emerge, and it visibly took off. We went through a couple of cold spells, but that didn't seem to phase the crop much, and a hail storm hit but that was in a fairly isolated area.
"I expect the earliest harvest to start in the first week of July. Reports of draining should turn up soon, and I've already heard of some rice turning down."