Arkansas Rice Update 4-11-25

by Jarrod Hardke, Rice Extension Agronomist - April 11, 2025

Arkansas Rice Update 2025-04

April 11, 2025

Jarrod Hardke, Scott Stiles, & Bob Scott

“I am the man of constant sorrow.”

The Sea Was Angry That Day

If you don’t have anything nice to say, you can sit next to me.  Water is still everywhere across northeast Arkansas (Fig. 1).  While this figure is a soil moisture percentile not a reflection of flooding, it paints a very clear picture of the degree soils are saturated throughout the region.  Central and southern areas of the state weren’t without their impacts to crops, including rice, but the massive total rainfall in northeast AR, and northeast of there, is most dramatic.

We’re currently still in the middle of this event and it will take time to know how things shake out.  Some areas are draining, others are stagnant, and in some places water is continuing to rise.  Other areas may be safe now but are expected to flood in the coming days into next week.

Only small rainfall totals are expected in the next 7 days with really minimal overall chances (Fig. 2).  With about 15% of rice acres planted according to Monday’s report (Fig. 3), the direct impact on rice acres of these flooding events may seem that it’s not that dramatic.  Unfortunately, a large portion of those acres are in the worst affected areas of the state.  UADA specialists and county extension agents have been surveying the situation this week and compiling numbers and estimates related to affected acres and the economic impact.  We hope to have those initial estimates out early next week.  It will certainly require additional follow-ups as this situation continues to progress.

An additional point is that there are some heavily impacted areas where crops haven’t even been planted yet, and which may not clear for weeks.  Again, we’re still on the front-end of this situation and what it means for growers, the economic loss, and crop acreage.

For those fortunate enough to be on the drying side of things – this weekend it appears fields will reach a dry enough level for planting to resume.  There will likely be a significant jump in planting progress for drier areas over the next week, but overall this planting season may start to drag out.

Read on below for more information on the effects of flooding on rice, blackbird depredation, weed control, and rice markets (and listen to the latest podcast episode).

Let us know if we can help.

Fig. 1.  NASA SPoRT-LIS 0-100 cm Soil Moisture Percentile.

Fig. 2.  NOAA 7-day precipitation forecast.

Fig. 3.  Arkansas rice planting progress as of 4-6-25 (USDA-NASS).

New Podcast:

Row Crop Update 4-9-25: Farming After the Flood (Tom Barber, Jarrod Hardke, Jason Kelley, Jeremy Ross, & Zachary Treadway)

Impact of Early-Season Flooding Rains on Rice (posted 4/8 on AR Row Crops Blog)

Jarrod Hardke

Rice is certainly the most flood-tolerant of our major crops, but even it has its limits.  Early-season flood events that submerge rice for extended periods of time are fairly rare, and typically not widespread.  Unfortunately, 2025 has something to say about that.

Many factors play into the survivability of rice in these scenarios, including length of time submerged; depth of submergence; temperature, clarity, and movement of the floodwater; and stage of the rice.

Let’s start at the beginning.  As a general rule, rice will emerge through soil or it will emerge through water, but not both.  So, drill-seeded rice that has standing water on top of it will not emerge until that standing water is removed.  There is a window of time that rice will wait below the soil surface for standing water to dissipate.  A week or so of submergence is a safe expectation for rice to survive in this scenario.  It can certainly be longer when temperatures are cooler as they are now.

As the floods get off the field, it will be important for warm, sunny conditions to get rapid emergence and good early rice growth.  Cooler, still damp conditions that lead to slow rice growth will keep vigor suppressed and plants that may have survived can be taken out by seedling diseases.

For rice that may have just emerged when floods arrived, the length of time they can survive under cooler current conditions can be quite long.  In past years we have had observations on seedling rice submerged for weeks that once the flood left, the rice was still sitting there like the day it went under.  The key was that the water was cool and had some movement keeping things oxygenated.  When the water gets stagnant and muddy, the length of survival can get short fast.

So, the expectation is that much of our impacted rice acres will survive with acceptable stands we’ll want to keep.  Some of the early vigor can be lost but also typically recovers as conditions and temperatures improve.  Levee fields still have their work cut out for them, as many of these levees will now need to be patched, re-pulled, or in the worst cases knocked down and started over.  As noted by Stewart Runsick in Clay Co., fields without levees may have soil piled up in places, meaning seed is deeper and may take longer to emerge.

An increasing concern is that water is beginning to back up in places – putting more acres under and for an increasing length of time.  The whole situation is “in progress” and will be sometime before we know the full outcome on affected acres.

As a reminder, we continue to look at “starter” type fertilizer applications on both sick and healthy rice, and we continually DO NOT see a benefit to these applications.  Getting rice dried out and growing well is the key, which means being careful with herbicide applications that could set them back while they’re recovering.  Rice is very resilient if we allow it time to recover.

Fig. 4.  Water with nowhere to go (h/t Jenna Martin, Cross Co.).

Giving Rice the Bird (Damage)

Jarrod Hardke

I’m not sure if this is adding insult to injury or injury to insult.  Blackbirds have now decided to start descending on rice fields that are emerging from flooded and saturated conditions.  This is another item on the list of things happening to this rice crop we can’t do much about.

The problem with blackbird depredation of seedling rice is they’re really after the seed.  When the ground is extremely soft and wet, they can easily grab emerging seedlings and pull them up so they can eat the seed.  They don’t want the rice plant, which is why you see the scattered dying seedlings on the ground (Fig. 1).  They like to run down the row pulling plants – any plants you see skipped they likely tried to pull and couldn’t get them out.  A few plants you may see snapped off where they pulled and broke the plant when it wouldn’t release from the ground.

Already lowered seeding rates to save seed costs and stretch seed supplies don’t leave us with much room for error.  There are no approved product options (sprays) to deter blackbirds from feeding in rice.  You can try deterrent measures such as balloons, sound machines, etc. but those only work a short while before they become accustomed to them.

We need the ground to firm quickly to shut down their activity.  Some fields and/or field areas may be damaged severely enough to require potential replants (seed availability dependent).  In many cases we may be forced to roll with what we have though.  In a conversation of keep versus replant – we recommend keeping stands of 3 plants/ft² for hybrid and 5 plants/ft² for varieties.  This is not top end yield potential, but rather appears to be the break point difference in yield loss versus input cost to replant.

While not economical for use on every acre, the AV-1011 seed treatment product is effective in deterring this type of feeding.  For those who see damage each year this might be an option to try in the future to minimize damage.

Fig. 5.  Blackbird depredation on rice.

Bobbing and Weeding

Bob Scott

Most of you probably got too much rain out of last week’s rain event.  I am happy that I have not seen as many flooded fields as I feared, but as I am writing this, rivers are still coming up.  Who knows where or when all of this will drain down.  But one thing is sure our residual rice herbicides have been tested and probably in some cases washed away.

For those that will have to replant (if possible) I would suggest re-applying some kind of residual program along with that replant.  If your field survived, I would be ready to come back sooner than planned with a POST applications plus the follow-up residual treatment that you had planned.  Rainfall is required to activate products like Command, Prowl, Gambit, Sharpen, etc., but too much rain causes them to wash away, down in the soil profile or simply dissolve faster.  Usually standing water equals a reduction in length of residual.

As the soil warms up this coming week and the next it is time to start scouting for small grass and escaped broadleaf weeds.  Smaller is always better in terms of POST grass treatments.  Hopefully we will make it a few weeks out from planting and still be clean and you can employ the best option which is spraying relatively clean fields with an overlapping residual shot of Command or other mixes.  Last year was an exceptional year for residual activity.  This year, at least earlier planted rice, is getting off to a rougher start with the rain.

Finally, I know that once these fields dry up, there will be a scramble to finish planting while it’s still April  Don’t forget to get those PREs out ahead of any rain chances.  With the resistance that we have out there, and the products available to us, we don’t want to get in a late season POST-emergence battle with bigger weeds.  Not a year for that added financial burden.

Market Update

Scott Stiles

“Hi, I’m just here to remind you that absolutely no one has a clue what happens next.”

---- Angie Setzer,@GoddessofGrain

Well, things change fast these days.  To keep up with the market news we’d need to release the Rice Update twice a day—at least.  On Wednesday (4/9), President Trump issued a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for countries that have reached out to negotiate a deal.  So, we’ve seen “Liberation Day” and “Pause Day” all in one week.

Note:  This pause on tariffs does not apply to China (at the time of this writing).  Keep in mind, if the 145% import tariff on Chinese goods remains in place for an extended time, the availability of many products will become limited until supply chains can adjust.  Glyphosate comes to mind as being a casualty of previous supply chain disruptions. 

Moving along, on Thursday (4/10) the USDA released its latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, or WASDE.  This month’s WASDE provided an update on the old-crop 2024/25 balance sheets.  As a reminder, USDA will issue its first new crop, 2025/26, supply/demand projections on May 12^th. 

Long-Grain:

The April report contained mostly offsetting demand adjustments for U.S. long-grain, with a 3 million cwt. increase in domestic use and a 2 million cwt reduction in exports.  The net change was a 1 million cwt reduction in ending stocks to 34.3 million cwt.  The 24/25 season average price forecast was unchanged this month at $14.20/cwt. or $6.39 per bushel.

The increase in domestic use to a record 132 million cwt. puts a spotlight on subpar 2024 milling yields, as more rough rice is needed for any given quantity of milled rice.  As for long-grain exports, milled rice has carried the ball thus far with higher sales to Iraq this year and total milled sales near unchanged from a year ago.  Rough rice sales on the other hand are 26% behind last year with notable declines in sales to Mexico, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.  There are 17 weeks left in the 24/25 marketing year.  Rough rice sales need to improve quickly.  At the current pace, long-grain exports could slide toward 61-62 million cwt., down from USDA’s April projection of 66 million cwt.

The April WASDE at face value was not as bearish as Thursday’s reversal down in May futures implied.  But still, the overall supply situation for long-grain remains heavy and bearish at the outset of the 2025 crop year.  The estimated stocks-to-use ratio at the end of the 2024/25 marketing year (July 31) is pegged at 17.3% and well above the prior 10-year average of 14.1 percent.  Ending Stocks at 34.3 million cwt. are up 15 million cwt from last year and the highest since 2010.  These fundamentals will continue to limit rallies in old crop futures.  At least until the end of April, the May futures contract could be rangebound between $13 and $13.60 ($5.85 - $6.12/bu.).  As volume picks up in the July contract, it has been trading the $13.20 to $13.80 range for the last 3 weeks.

Medium Grain:

If there’s any good news, it’s in the medium grain balance sheet.  USDA lowered ending stocks for the 6^th straight month down to 8.5 million cwt.  The real story is the stocks-to-use ratio, which sits at a 7-year low of 12.8%. 

USDA lowered medium grain imports 1 million cwt this month on lower volumes coming into Puerto Rico.  Exports were increased by 0.5 million to 29.5 million cwt.; the highest since 2016.  Per USDA’s weekly reporting, medium grain export sales are running 23% ahead of last year.  The bulk of medium grain sales are milled rice with Japan accounting for about 2/3 of sales this year.  Notably, Japan asked for and appears to have received priority in trade negotiations that will be taking place over the next 90 days.  There were no changes this month to the 24/25 season average price for southern medium grain, holding at $15.20 or $6.84 per bushel.

World Rice Numbers:

A couple items stood out in USDA’s April World rice estimates.  India’s production was increased by 2 million to a record 147.0 million tons.  USDA noted this is the ninth consecutive year of higher rice production for India and the first time India surpassed China in rice production.  China’s production estimate was unchanged this month at 145.28 million tons.  Brazil’s rice production was increased 200,000 tons to 8.2 million; up from 7.2 million last year.

Final Note:

Look for opportunities among all the market volatility.  For one, the oil and energy markets are under significant pressure due to the ongoing trade conflict.  Below is a 4-year weekly chart of WTI crude oil.  This week, WTI traded to the lowest level since the pandemic—trading down to $55.12 mid-week.  Diesel futures traded down to $1.9373 at one point Wednesday.  The energy markets have recovered some following the 90-day tariff pause.  Energy prices are still near 4-year lows.

Use the Arkansas Rice Advisor Internet App!

The Arkansas Rice Advisor site https://riceadvisor.uada.edu functions like an app on your mobile device.  There you can readily access the DD50 program, rice seeding rate calculator, drill calibration, fertilizer and N rate calculators, publications, and more.

Additional Information

Arkansas Rice Updates are published periodically to provide timely information and recommendations for rice production in Arkansas.  If you would like to be added to this email list, please send your request to rice@uada.edu.

This information will also be posted to the Arkansas Row Crops blog (http://www.arkansas-crops.com/) where additional information from Extension specialists can be found.

More information on rice production, including access to all publications and reports, can be found at http://www.uaex.uada.edu/rice.

Acknowledgements

We sincerely appreciate the support for this publication provided by the rice farmers of Arkansas and administered by the Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board.

The authors greatly appreciate the feedback and contributions of all growers, county agents, consultants, and rice industry stakeholders.