AgFax Rice

By Owen Taylor, Ag Fax Editor

OVERVIEW

Harvest is pushing ahead in the coastal rice belt of Texas and southwest Louisiana. Yields still seem to be holding up well. We’ll know more on Friday when Louisiana releases its rice harvest survey report, which we post on our website in the Louisiana and Rice sections.

More draining has started in the Midsouth. No reports of harvesting yet, although a few combines might have run this week in rice in central Louisiana. Rains fell through parts of the region in the second half of the week, and that could delay anyone who can make an early start. This has been a late crop due to spring rains, cold weather and planting delays. Plenty of people will be greatly relieved when they see those first combines running.

Harold Lambert, Independent Consultant, Ventress, Louisiana

“Rice harvest has begun in the early fields. I don’t know any actual yield numbers yet, but reports are that the rice is very good. Our middle aged rice is headed out, and most of it has been sprayed for stink bugs. We’ll have a round of late rice that went in after the final crawfish fields were drained, and none of that is even in the boot stage yet.

“Where we treated stink bugs, numbers weren’t tremendous like we’ve seen in some recent years. They’ve been at threshold but not avalanche-type counts.

“Corn harvest is going. Where we suspected very good dryland yields, that’s turned out to be the case. Those fields are probably averaging 225 to 250 bu/acre dry weight. Most of the other corn has been in the 200- to 225-bu/acre range. We’re happy with that, especially considering some of the ground it’s on.

“The thing that stands out to me about 2020’s corn crop is the amount of pure sunlight we’ve had. This spring, it was the highest amount of quality sunlight I’ve ever seen.

“Soybean harvest is underway now in the earliest fields where sugarcane will be planted. No feedback on yields yet, but those beans certainly look very good.

“Our other MG IV soybeans are at R6.5 or in that range, and we’re pretty close to lining up our harvest-prep applications, depending on when fields were planted. We’ve sprayed stink bugs at least twice in those fields and a third time in places.

“For the most part, redbanded stink bugs (RBSB) haven’t shown up in tremendous numbers like in the past. Soybean loopers are present in treatable numbers, but only in those late MG IVs and early MG Vs, and that’s a limited part of our soybean acreage this year. Soybean loopers could be so much worse, but we’re not treating them on a wide basis so far.”

Hank Jones, RHJ Ag Services, Winnsboro, Louisiana

“Rice fields are starting to be drained and are drying down. We will begin cutting samples early next week. I think we have a pretty good rice crop, but you never know until you cut. We will soon know how bad the heat hurt it. We have pulled the water on the row rice, and around half of the paddy rice has been drained.

“Rice stink bugs (RSB) were fairly light in the early-planted rice, but in isolated cases in the later-planted rice, RSBs have been pretty bad. Some fields have required multiple shots to get the population down to a level we can live with.

“In soybeans, redbanded stink bugs (RBSB) are here to stay at this point in the year. The majority of the acres I check have been sprayed at least once for RBSBs, and 15% to 20% have been sprayed twice. This will be the biggest pest across all the crop for the rest of the season.

“That second treatment was triggered by an explosion in redbanded numbers. When beans reached R5.5 to R6.5, RBSBs rapidly gained a foothold. I am actually checking a lot of beans twice a week to assure RBSBs are not coming in behind me.

“All the treatments going out for redbanded stink bugs are working well, so far. We are starting to pick up a few loopers, but populations are not high enough to spray for specifically. As we continue to treat RBSBs, we are bound to flare the loopers.

“South of I-20, most of the corn is being harvested. Yields are 5% to 10% above what we expected – a lot of corn acres are yielding 200-plus bushels per acre. The only yield issues I’m hearing of are in areas where northern corn leaf blight got bad, and those yields are slightly disappointing. 

“North of Interstate 20, they are just starting to tiptoe into harvesting corn. They were a bit behind on the plant dates.”

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

“Rice harvest continues in southwest Louisiana, and we’ve cut 65% to 70% of the main crop in this part of the state. We’ve passed the midway point statewide, and our crop looks very good. We just hope the yields hold up for the remainder of the year.

“We’re also a couple of weeks away from hearing about yields in northeast Louisiana, which accounts for 25% of our crop. The crop in that part of the state does look good. A big portion of northeast Louisiana is in row rice. So, I’m anxiously awaiting word on how it does.

“I have received a handful of disappointing yield reports that have come in more recently. These were in the lower 40s (barrels/acre), and I think a lot of those fields were flowering when we had that 10 days of high heat and high nighttime temperatures above 75 degrees.

“We found some blanking in sections of the panicle and also secondary diseases that moved in on the blanked grain,which led us to that conclusion. Again, just a few fields have been in that situation so far, and we hope it’s not too widespread. However, we always expect yields to drop as we move into later-planted rice. Otherwise, the rice crop looks very good overall.

“The ratoon crop also looks really nice so far and seems to be coming back well.”