Feature

Arkansas crop producers who want to get better control of their water use during the 2020 growing season will have several opportunities through a series of irrigation and water management schools. Chris Henry, associate professor and water management engineer for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said the class size and curriculum of each school is designed for ... Read More »

• By Bruce Schultz • Farmers at the recent Northeast Louisiana Rice Forum heard about the benefits and challenges of growing row rice. The practice uses irrigation with collapsible poly tubing or rainwater to keep soil moist, but no permanent flood is maintained. Levees are not required, so farmers can wait until planting to make crop decisions. Mike Salassi, Louisiana ... Read More »

Greenville, Mississippi native and Mississippi State University weed science graduate student Tameka Sanders is working hard to understand the relationship between off-target movement of herbicides and rice development. Sanders’s journey towards studying rice at MSU was a winding one. She earned her undergraduate degree in biology from Delta State University and then began working for the USDA in Stoneville, Mississippi. ... Read More »

The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to issue the third and final round of 2019 Market Facilitation Program payments aimed at assisting farmers suffering from damage due to trade retaliation by foreign nations. The payments will begin to show up in farmers’ bank accounts by the end of this week. “It’s been a great start to 2020 for American agriculture with ... Read More »

Agworld recently acquired all of the assets of Greenbook, a comprehensive database of crop protection labels and information, from Farm Journal. The move will allow Agworld to complement and expand its current offerings that provide collaborative farm management on a single platform. “This is going to be a core part of what we do and how we run the Agworld ... Read More »

• By Lesley Dixon • The Arkansas Department of Heritage aims to preserve and protect Arkansas’s natural and cultural heritage, and enhance the experience of visitors and locals alike. Within the department, the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame accepts nominations from the public for restaurants, proprietors, and events that embody and celebrate Arkansas cuisine. Award winners will be announced on ... Read More »

GEDrew is a brown rice with an odd kernel trait that sidelined its commercial prospects. Now, Agricultural Research Service scientists’ re-examination of the trait and its link to increased antioxidant levels could give the rice variety a new commercial lease on life. GEDrew is the result of a mutagenesis rice breeding program conducted more than a decade ago by rice ... Read More »

• By Luis Espino and Ian Grettenberger • Do you want to make sure your freshly planted rice fields don’t look like the muddied mess on the left below (versus clear on right) following a pyrethroid application? Wondering if your tadpole shrimp are becoming less susceptible to pyrethroids? We do too! Pyrethroids are widely used for managing tadpole shrimp, and ... Read More »

• By Whitney Brim-DeForest, Sean Hagan and Luis Espino • For the past several years, California rice has been dealing with a pesky new weed, weedy rice, aka “red” rice. Weedy rice is a difficult pest to manage, because it is the same species as rice (both are Oryza sativa L.), rendering herbicide use next-to-impossible. In the southern U.S. rice-growing ... Read More »

While 2019 was doom and gloom for rice producers, 2020 may be the year of the rebound for the state’s largest agricultural export, with total Arkansas rice acreage expected to increase 25% to nearly 1.5 million acres. “We’re expecting a sharp increase in total rice acres driven by long-grain rice, with a modest reduction in medium-grain acreage,” said Scott Stiles, ... Read More »