On Friday night and Saturday morning – Sept. 23-24, 2005 – Hurricane Rita roared up the border between Texas and Louisiana. Lake Charles, La., was hit hard, and tidal surges pushed salt water into the rice fields across the southern part of the state.

Rice farmers were particularly concerned because rice is a very salt-sensitive crop.

“Vermilion, Cameron, Jeff Davis, Calcasieu and even areas eastward all along the coast were affected by the salt,” says Howard Cormier, Vermilion Parish county agent.

LSU AgCenter responded by taking on the task of sampling soils in the affected areas from Henry, La., in southeastern Vermilion Parish to the west side of the Sabine River in Calcasieu Parish. After the samples were analyzed to determine salinity levels, LSU AgCenter recommended that rice not be planted on soils with levels of 750 parts per million (ppm) or more.

“The problem is,” Cormier says, “that you can plant rice, and it may grow, but it won’t make a head, won’t make any grain.”

According to the county agent, of all the affected areas, Vermilion Parish probably had the greatest reduction in rice acreage in 2006, going from 75,000 to 33,500 acres.

Product specific to high salinity soils
In February 2006, representatives of a young company called 3 Tier Technologies, which is based in Southlake, Texas, and specializes in humate-based products, came to south Louisiana to work on a crawfish project. When they realized the predicament of the rice farmers in the salt-affected areas, the representatives called in Alexander Shulgin, a Russian scientist who does consulting work for 3 Tier.

“Alexander has always worked with humates and holds numerous patents and copyrights,” says Dennis Blankenship, president of Growth Plus, Inc., the distributor for 3 Tier Technologies.

“He really is a genius and a problem solver. In fact, Alexander led a team that cleaned up the accident at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant with humic acid. Of course, it was a much more potent form than we use, but that’s the technology behind it.”

At 3 Tier’s request, Shulgin came down to the south Louisiana site, took soil samples and developed a product called Nitrogen Enhanced Soft Humic (NESH) for application on high salinity soils. NESH goes right in the spray rig and is applied about four days before going to permanent flood.

“This product does not get rid of the salt,” Blankenship says. “NESH buffers the plant from the negative impact of the salt, allowing the plant to germinate, grow and produce.”

Once the product was in hand, 3 Tier Technologies began working with Cormier and the LSU AgCenter to try to find a farmer who would let them conduct an on-farm trial. Their objective was “to propogate rice on hurricane contaminated soil with less than 5,000 ppm salt and more than 750 ppm salt.”

However, area rice producers were skeptical because it was already late in the season, and salinity levels in the soil were still very high. Finally, David and Francis LaCour, who farm near Abbeville, agreed to a 10-acre trial but didn’t have much confidence in what the results would be.

“The reason we went with the program is because our salinity levels were way above LSU’s recommended planting level,” David says. “We looked at the data and knew we wouldn’t have any success planting into that kind of concentration.”

Critical 2006 trial dates
On July 6, with salinity levels running between 3,000 and 4,000 ppm, five Clearfield lines of rice – CL 131, CL 161, Clearfield XL8, Clearfield XL 729 and Clearfield 730 – were planted with a planter and seed donated by RiceTec.

The plot was treated with a 3 Tier’s Starter Package (Establish 5-16-12 at 32 ounces per acre and Huma-Cal Plus XL at 64 ounces per acre in 20 gallons of water per acre).

According to 3 Tier, Establish is a multi-use, liquid, soil or foliar fertilizer and Huma-Cal Plus XL is a blend of calcium with nine enhanced plant and soil beneficial microbes, plus five new strains of Bt for increased management of surface and sub-surface insects.

“We wanted to produce a healthy atmosphere for the plant,” Blankenship explains.

On July 8, the plants germinated and emerged from the soil on July 10. On July 21, NESH was applied at 8.8 gallons per acre in 30 gallons of finished spray solution per acre with David’s sprayer and the assistance of G&H Seed Company. On Aug. 6, the irrigation pump started, and on Aug. 7 the permanent flood was established, and the pump was stopped. The field was drained on Oct. 17 and harvested on Nov. 1.

“Our yields were outstanding,” David says. “The Clearfield XL729 yielded as high as 53 barrels per acre. We didn’t feel like we had a yield reduction of any sort. The quality was also outstanding, but the perfect fall weather may have been a contributing factor to that, too.”

One hundred and nineteen days passed from planting to harvest and 25.5 inches of rain fell during the trial. To view the dates and rates of all of the herbicide, insecticide, fungicide and fertilizer treatments, go to www.3tiertech.com and click on Research & News, then click on Louisiana Hurricane Soil Remediation – Final Report.

Plans to add check plots
“The product (NESH) definitely works,” Cormier says. “David produced rice during the time of the year when yields are normally much lower. The shortcoming of the trial is that there was no check. But everything else was very positive.

“If this program can work, it will go a long way towards remediating some of these soils that still have a lot of salt,” he adds.

David LaCour agrees. He plans to have about 500 acres of treated area this year with the 3 Tier program. His farm had about 1,100 acres that were inundated with seawater from the storm surge during Hurricane Rita. Since some of those acres are still at levels of 5,000 ppm or above, he’s not doing anything with them this season.

“In every field that we do plant with the program, we’re going to have a check, which will allow us to answer questions about the economic returns,” LaCour says.

In other words, even if the products work, are they worth the input costs?

Blankenship says the full retail price of the 3 Tier Rice Starter Package is about $31 an acre, but “with urea being $450 to $460 per ton, if we can cut back the need for that even 25 percent, that’s a lot of money in the farmer’s pocket,” he notes.

NESH costs $10 per gallon, but Blankenship says the upside is that the newly developed product allows producers to go back into the rice farming business.

“Besides David, I think 25 to 30 farmers who are in the affected area will probably try the program on 50 to 100 acres,” he says. “Once they use it, they’ll see that it actually does perform and can bring back some of the 140,000 acres that are out of the economy.”

By comparing the results of a check plot against the treated acres, a farmer can determine if the treatments will pencil out for him. David LaCour had a good experience in ’06, so he’s ready to move the program forward on a larger amount of acreage in ’07.

“There’s a lot of technology using humic acid products that hasn’t been in the rice industry before,” LaCour says. “We’re going to give it a try.”

Contact Carroll Smith at (901) 767-4020 or csmith@onegrower.com.