Arkansas Rice Update 5-24-24

by Jarrod Hardke, Rice Extension Agronomist - May 24, 2024

Arkansas Rice Update 2024-08

May 24, 2024

Jarrod Hardke and Bob Scott

“Well, it’s alright, doing the best you can.”

Weather Troubles Continue

Is it too much to ask for a little cooperation?  After last weekend’s unexpected rain across northeast AR created plenty of spraying and fertilizing issues, the middle portion of this week saw a return to progress.  Yet once again, after forecast storms failed to materialize and we went back to work, unexpected storms blew up and caught us in the middle of that work.  Problems fields abound again.  Partially sprayed fields, half-fertilized fields, fields that got a free flood before the fertilizer went out, you name it.

Now we’re back in the middle of additional storms further delaying progress.  One of the most common concerns right now is about getting late with our preflood nitrogen.  Last week’s newsletter (Arkansas Rice Update 5-17-24) has some comments on this and we posted additional information on Suboptimal Conditions and Preflood Nitrogen.  These still don’t cover every possible scenario so even more comments are included in this update.  Still more questions – give us a call.

As we end this week with more rain, rice planting progress is essentially complete.  Are there still acres left to go?  Yes.  Will some of it still get planted?  Yes.  Will a decent chunk of remaining rice acres to plant be left unplanted?  It appears that way.  Still a big rice acre year, just chipping away to a lower number than we thought would happen early in the year.

The upcoming week appears to clear up before rain chances appear again next weekend.  Hope turns toward rapidly drying fields with sun and moderate winds to get many rice acres caught up to where we need them:  put to flood.

Let us know if we can help.

Table 1. U.S. Rice Planting Progress as of May 19, 2024 (USDA-NASS).

Fig. 1.  NOAA 7-day precipitation forecast.

New on Arkansas Row Crops Radio:

Weeds AR Wild Series, S4 Ep 6:  Identifying and Managing Herbicide Drift

Ricing Around

Jarrod Hardke

• • It appears that a number of our herbicides are behaving extra actively this season creating more rice response. Environmental conditions – that old chestnut.  Command was noticeable first, remaining active much longer than we usually expect to see.  More recently that seems to have been followed by extra activity out of Ricestar and Facet.

  • Speaking of Facet (quinclorac) – we’re already seeing some signs/reports of delayed phytotoxicity syndrome (DPS) in fields. This problem can be a little of an oddity each year, since its occurrence depends on application timing, rate, soil conditions, and environmental conditions.  Most often a higher rate of quinclorac followed by an immediate flood after conditions have kept the soil profile fairly wet is when we see this occur.  This year we’re seeing the symptomology even when quinclorac was applied up to two weeks prior to flooding.

  • Don’t make bad situations worse when it comes to nitrogen management. Don’t apply the large preflood shot on fields that have standing water or on fields where we aren’t yet ready to manage a flood (e.g., no levees up).  Danger, Will Robinson!  Nitrogen losses can be great in these scenarios then we’re playing catchup and guessing the rest of the season.

  • If you’re getting late on nitrogen and feel you have to do something – default to the spoonfeed route – 100 lb urea every 7-10 days in front of the next rainfall event. Ideally, if we had to go this route, we would put out the first 100 lb urea, then it get dry enough before the next application to get the field ready so we can apply all the remaining preflood N and flood up.  But if we don’t get that dry up event, keep applying 100 lb urea every 7-10 days until you’ve exceeded your normal preflood N rate (spoonfeeding this way is less efficient than our normal preflood app, so we have to lean high on the N rate).

  • Speaking of N rates and spoonfeeding – if you catch a free flood and decide to keep it and start spoonfeeding – to maximize yield we need to make 4 weekly applications of 100 lb urea for hybrids and 5 weekly applications of 100 lb urea for varieties. We can occasionally get away with one fewer application in each situation, but dropping urea into the floodwater on young rice is inefficient enough that we have to offset it.  Any time we’re dropping urea into standing water we don’t need NBPT (e.g., Agrotain) on the urea so at least we can save that money.

Bobbing and Weeding

Bob Scott

Scattered thoughts on weed control.

We are in that time of year when multiple crops are up and everything needs to be sprayed.  So, just a reminder to be careful out there and watch which direction the wind is blowing and the presence of sensitive crops that might be next door.  See page 28 of the 2024 MP44 or refer back to previous newsletter.

Already had some calls and pics of Roundup and Newpath on rice which unfortunately is too common.

Things can go the other way as well (Fig. 2) and rice herbicides like the SU chemistry (Permit, Gambit, Regiment, etc.) can get on soybeans often causing yellowing and purple veins on the back of leaves.

Managing a field with drift damage can be hard.  Oftentimes in rice we want to dry up a field for Newpath drift, may have to pull the flood off to let a crop recover.  We used to recommend a shot of fertilizer and a flush or pray for rain to “get the field going again” but research did not support this practice.

It is usually just a matter of time, letting the rice crop metabolize the herbicide and start growing again.  Ford Baldwin used to tell me not to be quick to replant, rice has an amazing ability to recover if you give it time.  He was/is right.

For soybeans, sometimes it’s easier to replant that wait.  If the terminals are dead or the new growth comes out very damaged that is not a good sign.

Most of the time drift rates don’t have much soil activity (this varies by product) but replants usually are pretty safe from damage.

Fig. 2.  Sulfonylurea (SU) damage to soybean.

Fig. 3.  Provisia herbicide damage to non-Provisia rice (main tiller slips out revealing deadheart).

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.