Row rice featured at virtual field day
By Bruce Schultz, LSU AgCenter
MER ROUGE, La. — Presentations for the virtual northeast Louisiana row rice field day were released July 27, providing farmers with the latest information from LSU AgCenter researchers. The complete event is available online at https://bit.ly/LSURowRice.
Melissa Cater, director of the AgCenter Northeast Region, credited AgCenter agents Keith Collins and Bruce Garner for their work on the virtual field day. The video presentations can be viewed at any time for future reference.
Mike Salassi, AgCenter vice president for plant and animal sciences, said the AgCenter is committed to rice research and extension work, and an emphasis is being placed on the practice of row rice that is being used more in northeast Louisiana.
In the videos, Garner and farmer Jason Waller, of Morehouse Parish, made a presentation from a 48-acre field on Waller’s farm where five conventional rice varieties and three rice hybrids are being tested.
The stand was ideal, and “the stand counts were just phenomenal,” Garner said.
The field was irrigated after four to five days of no pumping.
Waller, who’s been growing row rice for five years, said he has learned to irrigate a field by looking at the soil.
“If we look at it and it’s wet, we’ll wait a day,” Waller said. “But if we look at it and it’s starting to get that dryness to the top of it, we’ll cut the pumps on, water it for just a little bit, wet it up and then back off again.”