Ratoon Crop

New DG263L Dyna-Gro long grain impresses with strong yields and milling. • By Vicky Boyd, Editor • Jeff Reidhar, who farms rice near Des Arc, Arkansas, likes to explore his options as new varieties or technologies come out. When Dyna-Gro offered him...

Texas rice growers need drier conditions to harvest a main crop before quality begins to fade along with hopes for a second harvest, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Research expert. Like many Texas crops along the Gulf Coast this...

• By Dr. Steve Linscombe • Hurricane Hanna made landfall Saturday evening on Padre Island south of Corpus Christi, Texas, as a Category 1 storm with sustained winds of 90 mph. Fortunately, this is southwest of the major Texas rice-producing...

Begin scouting early to catch the pest before it can cause significant yield loss. • By Vicky Boyd, Editor • For three out of the past five years, growers and consultants have found the rice planthopper in scattered fields of second-crop rice...

• By Bruce Schultz • An Louisiana State University AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant agent is studying the effects of crawfish production following a second crop of rice. Mark Shirley is conducting the study requested by farmers who want to know...

Arkansas appears headed toward a further increase in furrow-irrigated rice acres in 2019. This production practice is finding a substantial rotational fit for growers to save on land management costs, primarily associated with expenses related to tillage. Ultimately, there are...

Record grain yields were last achieved in Louisiana during the 2014 growing season when we were blessed with very favorable weather conditions. Until 2018, each crop since 2014 had been successively lower yielding than the year before. Louisiana saw...

Louisiana festival mixes rice farming’s conservation story with birding By Vicky Boyd Editor As they prepared to head out to a South Louisiana ratoon rice field, Kris and Eddie Farrey from The Villages, Florida, were anxious to cross two things off their...

South Louisiana rice farmers are finishing up their ratoon or second harvest. The yields have been good and are needed because of lower rice prices. https://youtu.be/iQefh1JfSz0 LSU AgCenter correspondent Craig Gautreaux contributed this video story from Acadia Parish.

• By Vicky Boyd, Editor • Rice delphacid, a planthopper native to Central and South America, has been found in several South Texas counties after a three-year absence. “It’s a very, very similar infestation as three years ago,” says Dr. Mo Way, a...

Texas rice farmers are seeing near-record yields of good quality grain, and many are considering a second harvest, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Research experts. Dr. Lee Tarpley, AgriLife Research crop physiologist, Beaumont, says despite a few problems for some...

The 2018 rice harvest in southwest Louisiana is past the halfway point, and Louisiana State University AgCenter agents say farmers are pleased. “Yields have been good, and it seems overall to be a very good crop,” says Jeremy Hebert, LSU...

Dr. Jarrod T. Hardke Arkansas Rice Extension Agronomist University of Arkansas, Cooperative Extension Service jradke@uaex.edu If I had told growers in January that they should plant their rice in May to achieve the best yields and that mid-April would be terrible, I’d have been...

Dr. Bruce Linquist California UCCE Rice Specialist balinquist@ucdavis.edu Application of the four Rs (right rate, right source, right timing and right placement) helps ensure high fertilizer use efficiency. Last year we discussed the four Rs of fertilizer N; this year I will touch...

No cash bids being offered throughout the year can definitely be described as a “tight spot.” And when rice farmers find themselves in a tight spot, they don’t give up. That’s not their nature. Instead, they look for another alternative to sell their rice. Several years ago, a small group of rice farmers in southwest Louisiana, who were faced with this situation, came up with an idea to send their rice to Mexico via rail. The inspiration for this thought was a rail facility located at the Lacassine Agri-Industrial Park that originally had been intended to carry sugar. Although that venture did not pan out, the property, infrastructure, spur and truck scales were all still there. Mark Pousson, who is the manager of what is now the South Louisiana Rail Facility (SLRF) in Lacasinne, explains how Mike Strain – the Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry in Louisiana – and Governor Jindal’s administration worked with them to “make something happen.”