Feature

• By Niranjan Baisakh, Adam Famoso, Jonalyn Yabes, Rodante Tabien and Dustin Harrell • New varieties are the life blood of the Louisiana rice industry. Rice variety development is primarily focused on the enhancement of yield, grain quality, disease and insect resistance and production traits. Nearly 45 percent of all water used for global crop irrigation goes toward rice production, ... Read More »

• By Jarrod Hardke • Soil temperatures remain cool, but it’s time to start putting some rice in the ground if fields are ready. Remember that seed treatments can start to run out of gas while the seed sits in the ground. 1. CruiserMaxx Rice and NipsIt INSIDE will provide about 28-35 days of dependable insect protection. After that, we ... Read More »

Horizon Ag Clearfield rice and Provisia rice varieties – CL163 and PVL01 – ranked among the top three varieties for quality in a recent cooking test that compared samples from a previous shipment of U.S. rice to Brazilian and Nicaraguan varieties. The cooking test was part of a recent USA Rice mission to distribute long-grain rice samples to the two ... Read More »

Throughout the Arkansas Delta, growers have eyed the first relatively dry week of weather since last September with cautious optimism. Stewart Runsick, staff chair for the Clay County Cooperative Extension Service office, says many growers in his area were able to do some of the first tillage of the season — work that, in most years, would’ve been checked off ... Read More »

• By Jarrod Hardke • There has been a fair amount of discussion about medium-grain selection between Titan and Jupiter this spring. Titan and Jupiter each have their own pros and cons. Based on head-to-head comparison, the yield potential is virtually identical (Figure 1) when looking at Producer Rice Evaluation Program (PREP) small-plot trials in 2017-2018. Titan gets the slight ... Read More »

• By Larry Steckel • The Environmental Protection Agency will begin requiring anybody who purchases, mixes or applies a paraquat-containing herbicide to take the “How to Safely Use and Handle Paraquat-Containing Products” online training module. It is expected the training will have to be completed before the new paraquat labels come out in mid-November and certainly before the 2020 burndown ... Read More »

Vermilion Parish and Abbeville, Louisiana, officials recently cut the ribbon on a new Louisiana State University AgCenter parish office, replacing the old one that as damaged by August 2016 flooding. AgCenter agent Andrew Granger thanked the Vermilion Parish Police Jury for funding the construction. The police jury called a special election for a proposition to rededicate money to fund the ... Read More »

The Kellogg Co. of Battle Creek, Michigan, will now accept contracts for Titan medium-grain for a portion of its 2019 volume of rice for cereal, based on an announcement the company made in December 2019. Titan is a high-yield, very short-season, medium-grain rice variety released from the University of Arkansas’ Division of Agriculture’s rice breeding program in 2015. It offers ... Read More »

Horizon Ag, University of Arkansas join to introduce two Clearfield varieties. • By Vicky Boyd, Editor • In partnership with the University of Arkansas and BASF, Horizon Ag plans to introduce two Clearfield varieties for seed production this season and for commercial planting in 2020. The new long grain and new medium grain were released by the University of Arkansas and ... Read More »

• By Kurt Guidry • The rice market has been quiet over the past couple of months with cash prices moving in a fairly narrow range. Some of this lackluster activity has been the normal seasonal slowdown typical of the holidays and the start of the new calendar year. But some of the quietness has been due to a lack fundamental ... Read More »