AgFax: Midsouth Rice
Owen Taylor, Editor
OVERVIEW
Light is flickering more strongly out there at the end of the tunnel. This season isn’t over yet, but that wonderful smell of rice harvest will soon be in the air on a wider basis.
Harvest continues in Texas and southeast Louisiana. Yields are said to be very good, even exceptional, but actual numbers are scant. Louisiana will release results from its rice harvest survey before the weekend, and that will tell us something. The Texas Rice Survey, which does not delve into yields, put main-crop harvest at 15%, but that was based on last week’s estimate. It is updated on Fridays.
Farmers are draining more rice this week in Arkansas and north Louisiana, and momentum should pick up next week.
In Arkansas, a combine might move into an early rice field in a week. See comments by Jarrod Hardke.
Somewhat cooler conditions settled over the Midsouth during the past week. Skies have mostly been full of sunshine, too. All that is a positive for rice that is flowering and filling grain. However, the forecast calls for daytime temperatures to return to the mid-90s this weekend. August isn’t going away.
CROP REPORTS
Richard Griffing, Griffing Consulting, LLC, Monterey, Louisiana
“We’re still watering row rice a little, but we’ve picked up most of the polypipe from the beans. One guy is still watering a couple hundred acres of cotton, but it’s winding down in a hurry, too.
“We’ve drained 40% of the paddy rice acres so far, and within the next 7 to 10 days, 90% of it will be drained. It looks pretty good. On the earliest rice, we’ll probably be harvesting it in 2 weeks. The youngest rice I scout is just heading, but that’s only one 500-acre field.
“Rice stink bugs have been fairly light.
“We’re beginning to desiccate a lot of soybeans. Within the next 7 days, we’ll have 70% done, and in the next 14 days 80% will be desiccated.
“Redbanded stink bugs are horrible, and we’re having to spray them every 10 days.
“A few of my clients are harvesting beans. No word on yields, but growers seem to be pleased. In another week, we will be heavy into soybean harvest.
“Corn harvest is just starting, and it’s looking really good so far. One of my farmers harvested about 1,000 acres and used the word ‘exceptional’ to describe it. Like the beans, it’ll be another week before we are really wide open on harvesting corn.”
Dustin Harrell, Louisiana Rice Extension Specialist, LSU Rice Research Station, Crowley
"We've had several good harvest days this week, and yields are still holding up well. We’ll know more after yield reports come in later this week.
“In certain fields, the ratoon crop either isn’t coming back as quickly as we’d expect or it isn’t making it all. A couple of people reported that RiceTec’s 7301 hybrid was noticeably slow to start ratoon growth. I’ve seen a couple of fields where it didn’t come back at all, I don’t know what happened in those cases. It looks like the plants died at the crown. I don’t think it’s a management issue because the same hybrid did okay in nearby fields planted at the same time.
“We’ve also noticed that PVL02 is pretty slow to come back. This is PVL02’s first year in commercial production. We had 4 ratoon fields of PVL02 in 2019, and 3 out of the 4 returned very well. It just seems a bit slow at the beginning.
"Everything else looks great. Growers were having to mud out a good deal of rice last week after rains, but that’s not as big an issue this week. The soil is starting to firm up."