• By Vicky Boyd,
Editor •
The University of Arkansas has released CLL16 — a new Clearfield long-grain variety — for seed production in 2020. It will be available commercially to growers in 2021.
From the breeding program of Dr. Karen Moldenhauer, the variety has the taller upright architecture of many of her other releases. CLL16 plant height averages 36 inches compared to the slightly shorter-statured CLL15, a semi-dwarf Clearfield variety from University of Arkansas rice breeder Dr. Xueyan Sha’s program. Released in 2019, CLL15 averages about 33 inches.
As with other Clearfield varieties, CLL16 will be marketed through Horizon Ag.
“We grew 20 acres of parent seed in 2019, and it did phenomenal,” Horizon Ag General Manager Tim Walker says of CLL16.
“CLL15 has done really, really well. But in that one field where we split the field and also had some CLL15, (CLL16) outyielded CLL15 by 15 bushels per acre.”
He cautioned that the results were from one field and one season. Nevertheless, the variety, tested as CLXAR19 in Dr. Jarrod Hardke’s Arkansas Rice Performance Trials, did well.
Across four locations and two years, CLL16 averaged 206 bushels per acre from 2018-2019 according to preliminary data. CLL15 averaged 196 bushels per acre during the same period.
Walker describes CLL16 as having a bigger, bolder grain than some other Clearfield varieties. Milling yield from 2018-2019 averaged 53-69 with relatively low chalk, according to ARPT data.
Like newer Clearfield releases, CLL16 has an improved disease package, thanks to the two blast-resistance genes: Pi-ta and Pi-ks.
Clearfield varieties have been developed using traditional breeding techniques to tolerate over-the-top applications of imidazolinone herbicides to control weedy rice, many grasses and some broadleaf weeds.