Good with the Bad

Good with the Bad

Strong yields have carried most of the chatter for the 2024 Arkansas rice season. An incredibly rapid early planting pace certainly had a great deal to do with it. Ultimately, yields appear to be challenging the state record set in 2021 — but we’ll have to wait on the official number in January for that.

While we prevailed on the grain yield side, the season was not without its challenges. Lower commodity prices across crops put more emphasis on rice, which led to a second consecutive year of rice acres above 1.4 million acres. That’s the first time that’s happened since 2009-2010. Acreage had the potential to be higher, but seed shortage issues helped to hold back some further potential increases in acres.

With a majority of acres planted by mid-April, a wet weather pattern set in that made early season management difficult all the way into early June. Fertility management and weed control took a lot of handwringing and second-guessing, ultimately taking us to second and third options in our management plans.

As we entered the swing of summer, June and July were favorable throughout, and a very good-looking crop began to take shape. Consistent warm temperatures throughout the season, minus a couple short cool snaps, kept things on pace for an early harvest, which began as we entered August.

The fields that struggled the most with management due to weather were the biggest questions, and they largely kept up their end of the bargain. Field yields were excellent from the get-go, and problem fields were largely few and far between. The current state average yield estimate is 169 bu/acre, just shy of the 170 bu/acre record in 2021.

The downside of the year comes once again in the form of milling yields. While we knew conditions leading up to harvest were good for milling yield potential, the slip is always between ‘ready for harvest’ and actually getting rice harvested.

So, with a huge amount of rice planted at once, it was all ready at once but couldn’t be harvested all at once. The weather took a hotter turn as harvest began, and grain moisture began to quickly plummet. This rapid drying clearly led to more brittle grain that breaks up more in milling.

Less-than-ideal early milling was followed by rainy weather over Labor Day weekend — this rewetting and drying of already dry grain began to further weaken milling yields. Two weeks later, with the arrival of Hurricane Francine and the multiple days of wet conditions, remaining milling yields dropped to an even sharper degree. Certain areas of northeast Arkansas also dealt with widespread rain and flooding from the event and more dramatic losses, but the event was not as widespread as initially feared.

So, while field yields set a high bar of expectation, milling yield reductions put a major damper on profitability, with some taking very large hits. Given the economic situation this year, it was an additional hit that was scarcely needed.

It would appear at this time that we’re headed for similar rice acres in 2025. The lack of clear direction from rice or competing rotational crops appears to point toward a more stable crop mix. Much will change before the first seed hits the ground, and hopefully there’s a shift toward something being profitable in 2025.

2024 Louisiana Rice Crop

The 2024 Louisiana rice ratoon crop is being harvested in South Louisiana.  In general, it has been a fair year for rice production. Early predictions were that the average per-acre yield for the state would be the highest ever. The cropping season started out with milder-than-normal temperatures in late February and early March when much of the rice in South Louisiana is planted. This early planted rice had excellent conditions for germination and stand establishment.

Unfortunately, unseasonably low temperatures in April (in the mid to upper 30s) set this early rice back, and it took the crop a long time to recover and start growing again. However, these cool conditions did not appear to have had any long-term effect on the crop. Rice producers in North Louisiana were hampered by wet conditions and then cold conditions that delayed planting.

Most of the rice in North Louisiana was planted late and several thousand acres failed to be planted. Climatic conditions during the rice growing season were, for the most part, good after the early April cold spell. There was adequate, but not excessive, rainfall, and the rainfall events came in a timely manner in most areas. There were many days of limited cloud cover, which maximizes radiant energy. This is good for rice growth and development.

Weather conditions were favorable in the first part of the harvest period, but excessive rainfall in mid-July made getting the crop out of the field a trying experience for many rice producers. Fields that were ready for harvest remained in the field as quality continued to go down.

While disease pressure was low in the early season, many producers reported disease increased after these continued rains. Many people might think that rice likes rain because it is grown here as an irrigated crop. However, rice is typically negatively impacted by rainfall, which (because of cloud cover) decreases radiant energy to the plant. Also, very wet conditions facilitate disease development, and rain and wind can actually cause sterility in rice florets.

After two to three weeks of rain, the rice harvest resumed the first part of August. Later rice saw increases in sheath blight, kernel smut, cercospora net-blotch, cercospora panicle blight, and a combination of rice stem borers, Mexican rice borers, and sugarcane borers reducing yields.

Rice milling quality is almost as important as yield because the price a producer will receive for his crop is highly dependent on this factor. The most important factor here is what is referred to as head rice or whole grain milling yields. In simple terms, this is the percentage of the harvest that remains as whole (unbroken) grains after the rice has been milled. We normally will begin to harvest rice at 20% grain moisture. As the moisture percentage falls in the field prior to harvest, this will normally have a negative impact on whole grain milling yields. Continued wetting and drying in the field can also have a negative impact. A lot of the latter-harvested rice crop produced below-average milling yields.

While the prices our producers receive for their rice crop has not moved up, the expense to produce the rice crop continues to rise. The price expectation for the 2025 crop will have to increase a great deal more before we see a substantial increase in acres planted to this important crop.

Rice in Texas

2024 was one of those years that Gulf Coast rice producers just want to forget. With drought looming over our heads from the past two years, I will admit there was some pessimism across the Texas rice belt going into 2024. Although I hadn’t officially started this role during the early phases of planting, I do know we got off to a much better start than we have in recent years.

A good example of that fantastic start would be right here at the Eagle Lake station, where we were catching one-inch rains what seemed to be every week between late April, May, and early June. Suddenly, by mid-June, the previously mentioned pessimism was met with cautious optimism about the 2024 crop.

With rainy weather comes clouds, and with cloudy weather during peak herbicide season, we did have some herbicide issues early on. Whether it be crop injury or herbicide failures on barnyardgrass, we definitely saw the impact of cloudy weather on herbicide performance. We have also identified new propanil- and quinclorac-resistant barnyardgrass populations on the west side of Houston. In addition, we have samples from these same populations that are currently being tested for resistance to imazethapyr and cyhalofop.

Fast forward to July 8, and here comes Hurricane Beryl to crush all of the aforementioned optimism. Being such an early hurricane, very few growers were able to get some of their earliest-planted rice out of the field, leaving the rest vulnerable to the storm. Although lodging was minimal after the hurricane, widespread seed shattering was the theme following Beryl and was what led to most of our yield reductions. Preliminary data is showing yields are down 25% to 35% for the main crop, and milling has taken a significant hit. For those who don’t know, we grow a lot of rice in Texas around the greater Houston area, and Beryl’s wind speeds and landfall unfortunately center punched the Texas rice belt in that area this 2024 season.

Ratoon crop harvest is just getting started, and we are expecting yield reductions here as well. Unfortunately, consistent rainfall in the weeks following the hurricane led to severe rutting across the state as main crop harvest was in full swing. We also had no shortage of ratoon crop fields abandoned for the year, and rutted fields where the ratoon crop is proceeding will likely end up seeing some yield reductions.

Rice delphacid has been the headliner from an entomology standpoint in Texas rice in 2024. We usually start finding them in late August, September, or October; however, in 2024 we started finding them immediately after the hurricane, marking the first time we have seen them in significant numbers in the main crop. On top of that, there just aren’t many insecticide options labeled in rice that provide adequate control, given how fast the populations can reproduce under the right environmental conditions. In addition, we documented hoja blanca virus in Texas rice for the very first time. Hoja blanca is vectored by rice delphacid, adding to the list of issues this insect can cause. I would like to thank Drs. Shane Zhou and Lina Bernaola for their assistance as we continue to learn more about these pests.

There’s a lot of uncertainty going into 2025, mainly because we’re still unsure on water availability from the Lower Colorado River Authority. Should we get water, we will see a major increase in Texas rice acreage next year. Other than that, I personally tend to be optimistic about next year. I’m beyond blessed to be in this new role at Texas A&M. We are developing a completely new and exciting rice Extension program from scratch, and I couldn’t be more excited to lead the effort.

State Record Yield for 2024?

Hello once again from Missouri! It seems like the crop season flew by and we’re back to another winter of meetings and planning for 2025. After producing at least 176 bushels of rice per acre over the past three years, a feat that was never once accomplished prior to 2021, it’s my personal opinion that we may have broken the rice yield record once again. The September U.S. Department of Agriculture-National Agrictultural Statistics Service estimate has Missouri’s 2024 crop pegged at a mere 169 bushels per acre, but all reports I’ve been hearing allude to a greater rough rice yield than we’ve seen. At an estimated harvested acreage of 214,000 acres, Missouri has eclipsed the 200,000-acre mark for two years in a row.

On the flip side of the yield coin is the quality, which may be slightly under what we saw in 2023. A week of stiff northerly winds followed by a short stretch of near 100 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures as we neared harvest moisture can be partially to blame for shortcomings we may have on quality. We had rice plots during that time frame that went from a moisture in the mid-20%s to 15% in under a week. Coupling that with two hurricanes that dropped up to 10” of rainfall during the middle of rice harvest certainly didn’t help matters.

I’d say the season up to that point went very well. The majority of rice farms in the southern half of the Bootheel were able to get most of their rice (and beans…) planted the first week of April, and not having any substantial cool snap after planting allowed for the rice to jump out of the ground and never check up. As we stayed dry during April, the northern half was also able to get most of the rice in early, which set us up for success.

Following a relatively dry April was a very wet May. Wet conditions delayed herbicide, and in some instances, fertilizer applications; however, they also kept the residuals that we were able to apply activated. Once we went to flood, grass was not necessarily the problem, but weedy rice was a widespread issue across many of our acres. So, on the other side of early planting, that likely kept the first flushes of weedy or red rice from being eliminated by our burndown application, leading to issues in June and July.

Missouri saw decent grain fill conditions and hit-or-miss harvest conditions. Great growing conditions allowed harvest to begin in the middle of August, and we were full steam ahead by Labor Day weekend across the Bootheel. The first couple of weeks made it look like we would have a third year in a row of near-perfect harvest weather, but Francine and Helene put a damper on that party. The state finished the last couple weeks of harvest in the mud and picking up more down rice than we’d like. If we end up with a lower state average yield than expected, these two storms, particularly the latter, may be to blame. However, near a month of dry weather following Helene allowed for us to correct most of the ruts and prepare rice ground for Plant 2025.

I’ve said it before, but this deserves repeating every year: I’m beyond blessed to be serving the rice industry in the Mid-South. Please reach out to me anytime with comments or questions. As always, God bless and eat MO rice!

2024 in Review

Based on early projections, 478,000 acres of rice were planted this year. This is down 37,000 acres from last year. Lower acreage is in part due to a large rainfall event on May 4 and May 5, which prevented some planting. This rainfall also delayed planting by about three days (50% planted on May 15 compared to the average of May 12  according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture). That said, the 50% harvest date was Oct. 8, which is about average. Thus, the season length was a bit shorter (146 days from planting to harvest), which may be due to a warm summer and favorable harvest conditions with little-to-no rain.

Speaking of weather, July was an exceptionally hot month. For most rice, July coincided with panicle initiation through the booting stage. I regularly analyze weather data from CIMIS stations in the rice-growing area of the Sacramento Valley. CIMIS has weather data going back to 1984. On average, July’s maximum temperature is 92.3 degrees Fehrenheit. This year, it was 97.6 degrees Fahrenheit and was the hottest on record since these records first started being tabulated. This also coincided with the warmest average nighttime temperatures (62.2 degrees Fahrenheit), which was 2 degrees Fahrenheit above average. The September average maximum temperature (91.2 degrees Fahrenheit) was also the hottest it has been since 1991 when it was 92.5 degrees Fahrenheit. However, September average nighttime temperatures were average.

Talking with others in Extension, we also saw a lot of fields where watergrass got out of control this year, in addition to a lot of redstem. Two relatively new herbicides were used this year: Zembu (pyraclonil) and Cliffhanger (benzobicyclon). While results were generally positive on these, in some cases, there were issues that needed to be worked out to ensure effective control. Pests and diseases were not a huge problem and were generally within typical ranges.

Based on personal communications with growers, farm advisors, and mills, yields are a bit lower than average. Lower yields are likely due to a later planting date and warmer-than-normal growing season temperatures. High nighttime temperatures can reduce yields due to increased nighttime respiration. We have also heard reports of lower-than-normal head rice yields. Low head rice is being reported for all varieties, but especially M-211. One reason for this is that, as mentioned above, September temperatures (during grain fill) were warmer than normal.