⋅ BY DEBORAH WILLENBORG ⋅
Despite having Hurricane Beryl pass over the rice region of South Texas earlier last week, the Texas A&M Rice Research Center held its 76th Annual Rice Field Day on July 11, at their station. Many of the surrounding areas to the north, south, and west of Beaumont continued in their recovery from damages brought on by Beryl’s winds and rain, but the area around the station and the greater Beaumont region were spared the brunt of the storm.
“I was surprised at how well the region appeared while driving into Beaumont from northwest of Houston,” said Raul Villareal, a rice specialist with the USA Rice/Ducks Unlimited Partnership who attended the event. “I was expecting to see more damage left behind by Beryl, so it was encouraging to see that many of the rice fields and structures were in better shape than anticipated.”
Scheduled field tours throughout the research center’s experimental plots were suspended due to wet conditions, and information sessions and vendor booths were moved inside the facility’s auditorium where it was nice and cool.
The theme for this year’s event was “Empowering Texas Rice — Challenges and Solutions,” with presentations by Dr. Sam Rustom (A Vision for ACCase-resistant Rice in Texas), Dr. Lina Bernaola (Starting Regional/International Collaborations to Improve Management of the Planthopper Rice Delphacid in Texas and Surrounding States), and Dr. Ted Wilson (Challenges and Solutions to Improving U.S. Long Grain Rice Quality and Yield).
USA Rice Director of Field Services Kane Webb also participated in the event and talked with growers and industry representatives about recent weather conditions to get their assessment of the region’s rice crop going into the 2024 harvest season.
“After visiting with several growers, most remain optimistic with harvest just around the corner,” said Webb. ”Everyone felt like they had a good rice crop in the field and agreed it could have been much worse and were thinking of their fellow growers to the southwest who are dealing with a much different situation.”
Rice harvest is just beginning west of Houston, and it will be a few days before the actual extent of damage there from the storm is known. In addition to rice, cotton, corn, and grain sorghum in that region also was damaged.