Arkansas Rice Update 5-10-24

by Jarrod Hardke, Rice Extension Agronomist - May 10, 2024

Arkansas Rice Update 2024-06

May 10, 2024

Jarrod Hardke, Bob Scott, Trent Roberts, Nick Bateman, and Ben Thrash

“In the middle of the night, there’s an old man treading around in the gathering rain.”

Surf’s Up

Another week down, another week of scattered rain with some severe storms along the way.  While there is still rice left to plant in the state, the early slug that was planted is turning its eyes toward fertilizing and going to flood.  A few went to flood last week, but more are pressing this weekend ahead of expected rain again Monday. 

The big early push will start next week following whatever rain we get.  Reminder – you can get urea (treated with NBPT) out on drying ground that’s free of standing water and let the ground finish drying underneath as you wait on the rain.  Once it rains, start flooding.  See more on preflood nitrogen timing later in the update.

While most of our rice is already planted, the remaining rice may be starting to run out of time.  Certainly, as we hit mid-May our confidence in maintaining yield potential continues to weaken.  Areas of central and especially southeast AR are where you can find most remaining unplanted rice fields, and that’s where rain chances are greatest this week.

Early forecasts were in the neighborhood of us reaching 1.5 million acres planted.  Now conversations turn toward the remaining unplanted acres and whether we’ll achieve 1.4 million acres.  I’m not confident in my current assessment other than to say that there is a lot of rice planted, and most of the remaining acres will still likely find their way in the ground, but some drag on early expectations should be expected.

The crop that’s emerged so far is looking excellent and responding well to routine rains and warm temperatures.  Weed control has also been bolstered by areas receiving more rain that had been lacking for a while.  We’re not out of the woods yet, but we appear to be ahead of the game for now.

Let us know if we can help.

Table 1. U.S. Rice Planting Progress as of May 5, 2024 (USDA-NASS).

Fig. 1.  2012-2024 Arkansas rice planting progress by week (USDA-NASS).

Fig. 2.  NOAA 7-day precipitation forecast.

New on Arkansas Row Crops Radio:

Weeds AR Wild Series, S4 Ep 4:  Brake Use in Rice

Bobbing and Weeding

Bob Scott

Scattered thoughts on weed control:

• Wet weather is both good and bad – avoid spraying residual applications on standing water.

• Lots of PREs breaking before we can get overlapping residual out – so calls coming in on small grass. Remember some grass can reach 3-4 leaf stage before it’s 2 inches tall – so be diligent ( 3).

• I like these wet conditions for Clincher, use full rate and proper adjuvant, fly with levees if possible and highest GPA possible for best coverage – will not hurt small rice.

• Ditto to above for Ricestar and Regiment but I like a good 2 leaf on Ricestar and label says 3 leaf on Regiment!

• Add residuals to these POST treatments grass/sedge (avoid phenoxies).

• Watch out for Clincher and Ricestar drift on corn! Continue to be careful with Roundup apps going out around baby rice.

Fig. 3.  Sprangletop at 4-leaf stage only 2 inches tall.

Pre-Irrigation Nitrogen Recommendations

Jarrod Hardke and Trent Roberts

Pre-irrigation – because we’re still kicking around 20% furrow-irrigated rice not everything is preflood.

So, let’s dive into some general comments really quick.  The DD50 Rice Management Program is your friend – if you use it for nothing else then use it to guide your early nitrogen (N) management!

The data in Fig. 4 is from flooded data, but the point is valid regardless of how you’re growing rice in that we need to start feeding rice with N around / by the final recommended time for preflood N.  You’re not falling off a cliff at that point, but the chances of a gradual decline in yield potential are possible and the cliff shows up later.  Preflood N maximizes our tillering potential – our first yield component!  Of note – pureline varieties are going to penalize you more, and faster, than hybrids if you’re late getting N out there to get the crop moving.

For flooded rice – N rate recommendations are in the Rice Management Guide.  In general, most varieties have a 105 lb N/ac preflood and 45 lb N/ac midseason recommendation on a silt loam (preflood increases to 135 lb N/ac preflood on clay soil).  Hybrids carry a standard recommendation of 120 lb N/ac preflood and 30 lb N/ac late boot (increase preflood to 150 lb N/ac on clay soils).

For furrow-irrigated rice things get a little more complicated.

Silt loam:

Hybrid – 3 apps of 100 lb urea every 7-10 days (+65 lb urea at late boot).

Variety – 4 apps of 100 lb urea every 7-10 days (the last app will align with midseason app).

Clay:

Hybrid – 165 lb urea followed by 165 lb urea 10-14 days later followed by 100 lb urea 7-10 days later (+65 urea at late boot) OR 4 apps of 100 lb urea every 7-10 days (+65 urea at late boot).

Variety – 5 apps of 100 lb urea every 7-10 days.

Fig. 4.  Percent of optimum grain yield by preflood nitrogen timing (DD50 unit accumulation) for selected rice cultivars.

Keep Scouting for Cutworms

Nick Bateman and Ben Thrash

We are still receiving several phone calls about cutworms in all crops.  Most are still in rice, but soybean and corn are seeing their fair share of damage as well.  As long as stand isn’t threatened in rice we aren’t overly concerned about the defoliation.  This early planted small rice will rebound fine, and no yield loss is expected.  With the lack of replant seed available this year, it’s imperative that we keep scouting this small rice to make sure we are not losing stand.  Cutworms are easy to control with lambda if an application is warranted.  If more information is needed on identification and what damage looks like, refer to last week’s update – Arkansas Rice Update 5-3-24.

CBOT September Rice Futures, 10-Year Monthly Continuation.

DD50 Rice Management Program is Live

The DD50 Rice Management Program is live and ready for fields to be enrolled for the 2024 season.  All log-in and producer information has been retained from the 2023 season, so if you used the program last year you can log in just as you did last year.  Log in and enroll fields here:  https://dd50.uada.edu.

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.