Arkansas Rice Update 4-25-25

by Jarrod Hardke, Rice Extension Agronomist - April 25, 2025

Arkansas Rice Update 2025-06

April 25, 2025

Jarrod Hardke, Scott Stiles, & Bob Scott

“I see the bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way.”

Which Way Do We Go

The more things change the more they stay the same.  Rains that were forecast for this week definitely went the way of hit or miss.  Some missed a needed rain, some were just right, and others received a little more than they bargained for.

This weekend and next week have additional rain chances, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty about them.  Fig. 1 has the 7-day precipitation outlook, and depending on where that bullseye settles we could see a lot of rain or very little across the Delta.  With about half the rice crop planted (Fig. 2) and May fast approaching, we’re in need of a good 7-10 day window to put most of planting behind us.

Fig. 3 is a small snapshot of what we’re still dealing with on some of the rice planted just before the April 2-5 flooding rains.  In some fields rice is anywhere from nearing 2-leaf, to leafing out under the ground, to spiking.  A wide range of emerging rice plants that’s making management decisions difficult, and possible replant decisions even more difficult.  Unfortunately, we need to wait until the majority of these plants emerge before making any decisions.

Overlap residuals in front of rain chances where you can, and don’t get behind on shutting down emerging grass.  Where rains have depleted our residuals from washing or just over time, some early grass is popping up that we need to get while it’s small.

Read on below for more information on planting date considerations, herbicide sensitivity, and rice markets.

Let us know if we can help.

**DD50 Rice Management Program is live!  To enroll fields:  https://dd50.uada.edu/ **

Fig. 1.  NOAA 7-day precipitation forecast.

Fig. 2.  Arkansas rice planting progress as of 4-20-25 (USDA-NASS).

Fig. 3.  Rice plants at various stages of emergence.

Planting Date Considerations

Jarrod Hardke

As we approach the start of May, it’s a good time to look at rice yield potential for remaining acres to be planted.  Sporadic rainfall chances over the weekend and throughout the next week may push us into May with a fair amount of acres unplanted, and some acres still potentially needing replants.

Below in Figures 4 and 5 are results of planting date studies averaged from 2022-2024 for the RREC at Stuttgart and the NERREC at Harrisburg.  Some of the more widely planted cultivars are included.  Other cultivars that were included in these studies and full results of planting date study trials can be found in the results of the Arkansas Rice Performance Trials publications on the Extension rice homepage:  https://www.uaex.uada.edu/farm-ranch/crops-commercial-horticulture/rice/.

At RREC, the highest yields are generally achieved with the earliest planting dates beginning in March.  Usually this begins to gradually fall off as we get to May then fall off more dramatically.  In some years the planting dates in April are a little stronger and there is less drop off, which happened to varying degrees in these years.

At NERREC, grain yields in March are good, but those in April are consistently the best.  As we reach the beginning of May there is a drop off but often no worse than the March planting dates.  After the first week of May the yield drop can be much more dramatic.

While certain cultivars can at times hold up better with later planting dates, we generally want to be mostly finished with planting during the first week of May.  After that, we become highly dependent on late summer / early fall temperatures staying up enough to drive us to better yields out of those late planting dates.

Figure 4.  Percent of optimum grain yield by planting date for selected cultivars at the Rice Research and Extension Center, Stuttgart, 2022-2024.

Figure 5.  Percent of optimum grain yield by planting date for selected cultivars at the Northeast Rice Research and Extension Center, Harrisburg, 2022-2024.

Sensitivity of Major Arkansas Field Crops to Commonly Used Herbicides

Jarrod Hardke and Bob Scott

With good amounts of rice, corn, and soybean emerged, the questions begin about what is safe to spray around surrounding crops.  The table below can be found on page 28 of the MP44 Arkansas 2025 Recommended Chemicals for Weed and Brush Control.  There are a few additional herbicides added to the table below that will be included in the MP44 next year.

Table 1.  Sensitivity¹ of major Arkansas field crops to commonly used herbicides.

¹ T=Tolerant, M=Moderately Tolerant, M/S=Moderately Sensitive, S=Sensitive, VS=Very Sensitive; T* Some crops are available with herbicide tolerance to these herbicides.  These ratings are based on the best available information to date and on foliar application or drift.

² Some soybeans are available with tolerance to ALS herbicides, STS or BOLT Soybeans; this tolerance varies for rice ALS herbicides, particularly Grasp, Regiment, and Gambit.

³ Smart Stack and Herculex are tolerant to glyphosate and glufosinate.  Tolerance does not imply that this herbicide is labeled for a specific crop.

⁴ Soybean is sensitive to Bolero if a full rate were to be applied prior to soybean emergence.  Once soybean is emerged, it is tolerant to Bolero.

Market Update

Scott Stiles

In Monday’s Crop Progress, NASS reported U.S. rice planting was 48% complete; ahead of the 5-year average of 39 percent.  Louisiana was 90% planted, Texas 77%, Mississippi 41%, Missouri 18%, California 2%, and Arkansas was 48% planted.  Except for Missouri, all states are tracking on par or ahead of the 5-year average planting pace.  Following the heavy rain earlier in the month, some areas of the state dried out quickly last week.  Per NASS, Arkansas went from 24% planted on April 13 to 48% planted on April 20^th.

Thursday’s Export Sales report had long-grain rough sales and shipments at 4-week highs for the week ending April 17^th.  Last week, the U.S. made rough rice sales to Honduras of 13,250 tons and “unknown” of 15,836 tons.  Mexico took delivery of 29,011 tons and Honduras of 17,750 tons.  Casting a shadow over this favorable news, long-grain rough rice sales are currently 25% behind last year with large year-to-year declines in sales to Mexico, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

Long-grain milled rice sales were very thin last week with a total of 2,235 tons of small sales to various buyers.  Saudi Arabia was in for the largest share of the total at 1,460 tons.  Of note, shipments to Haiti last week were 15,198 tons.  The weekly total of long-grain milled shipments was 18,641 tons.  Milled rice sales year-to-date are essentially even with last year.

As we’ve discussed in recent weeks, the old crop (24/25) long-grain stocks are heavy at 34.3 million cwt; up significantly from last year’s 19.3 million.  On top of a large U.S. crop in 2024, the world rice market is well-supplied today with Asian offers far below U.S. prices.  Plus, the U.S. is trying to work trade deals with 70 to 100 different countries.  The chart below of September 2025 rice futures illustrates clearly the strain these factors are exerting on the rice market over the past several months, with the September contract losing about $2.45/cwt since last July.  

Fig. 6.  CME September 2025 Rough Rice Futures, Weekly Chart.

At the time of this writing (Friday a.m.), the September 2025 contract is trading at $13.39 ½.  New crop bids at dryers around eastern Arkansas are mostly in the $5.64 to $5.71/bu. range.  Mill bids for new crop fall delivery hover around $5.78/bu today.  Mill bids for Jan/Mar 2026 delivery are currently $6.02 per bushel.

The upcoming May 12^th WASDE will include the first new crop (25/26) supply/demand estimates.  Furthermore, these new balance sheets will include the prospective acres from NASS’ March 31 survey.  Weather and market challenges this spring make final 2025 rice acres a subject to debate right now.

Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP) Payments:

We remind growers to complete their application for the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP) if they haven’t already done so.  ECAP payments are issued as applications are approved.  The deadline to submit an application to FSA is August 15, 2025.

More information on ECAP is available here:

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/resources/programs/emergency-commodity-assistance-program

As of April 21, USDA had approved 9,785 ECAP applications in Arkansas for payments totaling $218.9 million.  Eligible rice acres receive a payment of $76.94 per acre.  Payments are made on 2024 planted acres and 50% of 2024 prevented plant acres.  To date, ECAP payments on Arkansas’ rice acreage have totaled $90.62 million.  Initial ECAP payments will be factored by 85 percent to ensure total program payments do not exceed available funding.  If additional funds remain, FSA may issue a second payment later this year.

Fig. 7.  Arkansas ECAP payments as of April 21, 2025.

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.