Arkansas Rice Update 5-19-23

by Jarrod Hardke, Rice Extension Agronomist - May 19, 2023

Arkansas Rice Update 2023-09

May 19, 2023

Jarrod Hardke

“I was out in Arkansas, but I can’t tell ya just what I saw.”

Shenanigans

The silly season is officially upon us.  It’s that time of year where the random problems start to rear their ugly heads.  Is it herbicide, salt, seedling disease, insect, or was it a monkey with a flamethrower.  Lately I’ve been called where the monkey is the only thing that’s easy to rule out.

We’re definitely seeing some herbicide tank contamination and drift scenarios out there.  Looks like we got in a little too big hurry trying to get everything sprayed about 10 days ago before those rains.

Someone asked me today how I’d rate the rice crop on a scale of 1-10.  Overall, I give the crop an 8/10 at this point.  Two weeks ago, I would’ve said 5-6 at best.  Warm weather gave all the rice a boost and now look at us.  For all the calls about lower stand the past couple of weeks, few resulted in replants and most were plenty happy with what they had once a good evaluation was made.

Now we’re beginning the initial lurch into putting rice to flood.  We’ve seen a nice little start this week, and next week things will really start taking off.  And it’s not even June!

There’s no question we’re back in the game on rice acres.  You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a rice field.  Still feeling comfortably north of 1.3 million acres but it sure looks a lot closer to 1.4 million these days.

With rain chances disappearing for the upcoming week, it looks like remaining planned rice ground will have its window to get in the ground.  Some fields have still been out there awaiting dirt pans or staying a little wet from past scattered rains – those should see rice in the ground quickly now to finish things up.

Let us know if we can help.

Fig. 1.  NOAA 7-day precipitation forecast.

Table 1. U.S. Rice Planting Progress as of May 14, 2023 (USDA-NASS).

Fig. 2.  2012-2023 Arkansas rice planting progress by week (USDA-NASS).

Fig. 3.  IMI-tolerant off-type in a field of conventional rice injured by herbicide.

New on Arkansas Row Crops Radio this week:

Weeds AR Wild Series, S3 Ep9:  Weed Control Going into Flood and Row Rice Tips with Tommy Butts and Jarrod Hardke

Preflood Nitrogen Timing

Jarrod Hardke

Fields emerging in early April are hitting or will be rapidly hitting our final recommended time to apply preflood N based on DD50 unit accumulation (Table 2).  Accumulations are shown for Arkansas Co. (Stuttgart) for reference, but values for Poinsett Co. (Jonesboro) are tracking only one day behind at this point in the year.

To maximize grain yield, we want to be trying to fertilize and go to flood by around that final date.  There is still time built into the program after that date to allow for time to flood the field and successfully incorporate the N.  However, larger fields that take much longer to flood need an earlier start to truly keep things on time.

Now there isn’t typically a cliff that cultivars fall off if you miss hitting this date (Fig. 4).  This is simply the time that we expect to start seeing a general decline in yield potential if we continue to delay preflood N.  Every season is a little different, and it’s a little different for each cultivar.  But following the approach of pushing healthy rice along by this date will serve us well.

Table 2.  Final recommended date to incorporate preflood nitrogen for selected cultivars based on emergence date in Arkansas County.

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

DD50 Rice Management Program is Live

The DD50 Rice Management Program is live and ready for fields to be enrolled for the 2023 season.  All log-in and producer information has been retained from the 2022 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.