Rice Variety Selection
Variety selection is not a decision to be made lightly as it is the most important decision facing a producer going into the season. No other input can radically change the yield potential to the extent that...
The Right Mix
The 2023 season turned out to be a moderate one in all the right ways. Planting progress was one of the earliest in recent years, particularly allowing much of the Northeast to get the crop in very...
Disease prevention is key
In recent years, most disease calls have centered around sheath blight and the smuts (kernel smut and false smut). These two present very different management scenarios.
Sheath blight continues to be our No. 1 disease issue in...
Pyrethroids in California rice
We are fortunate that in California the pressure from arthropod pests is not as severe as in other parts of the world. However, we do have arthropods that can be considered key or important. In some...
Weed management in 2023: What can we expect?
Coming out of 2022, roughly half of all California rice fields were left fallowed last year. Others may have been fallowed for two seasons, and many of us have questions about what...
Yield potential and fertilizer N management in rice
If we have a “normal” planting year in terms of acreage, about half of the fields being planted to rice will have been fallowed the previous year. We have been studying yield...
Don’t fence me in
Seed selection decisions start earlier every year, with many farmers making decisions by December. Even with some decisions made, there’s still a lot of time before the start of the season to fine-tune those selections and...
The dry season
We started the year focused on the drastic increases in crop input prices for the 2022 season. Our attention was shifted once the spring rains finally stopped at the end of May and stayed away for 50+...
Disease and insect pests
Every season, the situation for disease and insects in rice is entirely different. Each is influenced greatly by environmental conditions, but they’re always there looking to take a bite out of our bottom line.
The 2022 season...
The art of irrigation begins now
The time we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. While I write these comments on March 29, there are already several thousand acres of rice planted across the Missouri bootheel. In fact, we...
Spray early, spray less
We say it every year, repeatedly, to the point of getting eye rolls: focus on pre-emergence (PRE) herbicides! There’s no single easier way to improve weed control and save money than to get PRE herbicides overlapped...
With input prices increasing, it is more important than ever to manage fertilizers in the most economically feasible way possible. Here are several things to consider when making fertility decisions.
First, aqua-ammonia is the cheapest and most efficient nitrogen source...
What to plant is always one of the most important decisions of the rice season. For 2022, every decision will be met with increased scrutiny given the overall rise in production costs.
The first question is do you need a...
Many rice farmers have told me that 2021 will go down as one of the most agronomically challenging seasons they ever witnessed in their careers. The simple answer is rain. It started before planting and did not consistently slow...
Justin Chlapecka, who recently earned his doctoral degree from the University of Arkansas, was named state rice Extension Specialist and assistant research professor with the University of Missouri. He begins Aug. 1.
Chlapecka fills a hole left when Missouri rice...
