Arkansas Rice Update 6-27-25

by Jarrod Hardke, Rice Extension Agronomist - June 27, 2025

Arkansas Rice Update 2025-15

June 27, 2025

Jarrod Hardke, Scott Stiles, Trent Roberts, Camila Nicolli, & Terry Spurlock

“The lonesome friends of science say, the world will end most any day.”

Making the Turn

Rice is moving pretty fast now.  The first heads are beginning to show up in some of the earliest rice, particularly in the southeast.  Even in the northeast where water stretched rice and nitrogen was severely delayed, there will be some early heading.  The big story is the lack of uniformity of much of the early rice – you  guessed it – because of the flooding and weather conditions it faced early.

Weedy rice and grasses are starting to wiggle their way out of the rice canopy.  Reminders of a difficult spray season where control was an illusion and ‘management’ was the best we could do with our weeds.  The hot and dry (but humid!) past week has now turned to concerns about stormy weather this weekend into the first half of next week.  Continued warm temperatures with scattered storms and moisture are a recipe for disease issues this time of year.  So, scout carefully, and be sure to keep a close eye on notorious trouble spots such as near eastern tree lines where the dew takes longer to dry.

While it would be nice to get some consistency out of our weather for more than a couple of days, as we near July we can’t thumb our nose at a rain chance.  Always a crazy statement when we’re not far removed from 2 solid months of rain, but at least for rice we’ll take the irrigation help.  For other crops that are shallow rooted from all that early rain, a little helping rain wouldn’t hurt on them either now that the ground is baked dry.

Eyes toward the Acreage report on Monday June 30^th.  For Arkansas I’m still thinking around 1.1 million total acres of rice planted.  We’ll see if the survey agrees.

Read on below for more information on boot nitrogen on hybrid rice, blast, Cercospora, and rice markets.

Let us know if we can help.

Fig. 1.  NOAA 7-day precipitation forecast.

Boot Nitrogen in Hybrid Rice

Jarrod Hardke and Trent Roberts

For hybrid rice – we recommend a preflood N application dependent on soil texture (generally 120 lb N/acre on loam soils and 150 lb N/acre on clay soils) followed by a late boot application of 30 lb N/acre.

What is the late boot timing?  Once the flag leaves on main stem tillers are fully emerged to where you can see the leaf collar up until boot-split.  This is the late boot stage.

What is the recommended rate?  30 lb N/acre (65 lb urea/acre).  Rates higher than this have not displayed an added benefit.  There’s no reason to apply 100 lb urea/acre “just because you’re paying for 100 lb minimum flying”.  That just means you’re adding another cost of 35 lb urea that isn’t giving a benefit.

Why the late boot and not a midseason application?  The preflood N rate for hybrids is sufficient to supply season-long N needs for hybrids.  Any potential shortfalls during the season can be resolved by the hybrids taking up additional native soil N to bridge the gap.  So, a true midseason is not needed to drive overall yield potential.

The late boot N application to hybrids serves to reduce lodging potential, slightly improve yields, and slightly improve milling yields.  If you were to make this application earlier at a true midseason timing, we would still expect similar benefits, but some negative consequences could occur such as increased plant height and increase rank (excessive) growth.  Stick with the late boot timing to get the positives while minimizing the negatives.

Table 1.  Data from a single 2022 trial at Stuttgart evaluating timing and rate of midseason and late boot nitrogen (N) applications to hybrid rice (RT XP753) – net return was calculated using $6.00/bu rice as a base adjusted for milling yield minus a generalized operating cost base of $1000/ac with costs for N added based on treatment.

What about other N sources?  The late boot N recommendation is to be applied as urea.  After rice enters reproductive growth, it can take up urea N with high efficiency (90% uptake) when grown under a continuous flood.  Foliar N applications cannot supply these N rate levels.  A foliar N product containing 32% N can only deliver 3.2 lb N per gallon.  Even if applied at 3 gallons per acre and similar efficiency to urea, you’re only getting 8.6 lb N versus 27 lb N from urea (at 90% uptake for each).

The product in the table above was a 10% N product so it only supplied 2 lb N from a 2 gallon application.  One other cost element not included in the table is that the liquid N could be applied along with a fungicide (if one were already being applied) which would eliminate an extra application cost.  However, in this single trial, incorporating differences in application cost still results in a higher return for 30 lb N as urea applied at late boot.  Based on continual questions on this topic, we will initiate further studies comparing urea to liquid N sources at the midseason and late boot timings.

Disease Update

Camilla Nicolli & Terry Spurlock

Blast Disease Progression in Arkansas

Recently, three more counties – Lincoln, Arkansas, and Jackson – have reported cases of blast disease in rice.  While weather conditions this week have not been favorable for blast development, the forecast is showing a chance of rain starting Saturday.  Since rainfall can create conditions that favor disease spread, it’s important to continue scouting your fields and monitoring for symptoms.  Staying ahead of potential outbreaks can support timely management decisions.

Differentiating Cercospora Diseases in Rice and Soybean

We are often asked if ‘Cercospora’ causes disease in rice and soybean.  Yes, Cercospora fungi affect both rice and soybean, but the specific pathogens that cause these diseases are different.

In rice, Cercospora janseana is the causal agent of narrow brown leaf spot, which is now commonly referred to simply as ‘Cercospora” in rice.  It’s important to note that the typical leaf symptoms seen in other regions are not often observed in Arkansas.  Here, Cercospora symptoms are more commonly found on the sheath and panicle.

In soybean, the pathogens Cercospora flagellaris or Cercospora kikuchii cause both Cercospora leaf blight (CLB) and purple seed stain.  Another Cercospora species, Cercospora sojina causes Frogeye Leaf Spot (FLS).  Recognizing that these diseases are caused by different species of Cercospora may aid in management decisions.

Table 2.  Key differences:  Cercospora in rice versus soybean.

Fig. 2.  Cercospora examples in rice and soybean.

Fig. 3.  Purple seed stain in soybean.

Learn more:

• Cercospora in Rice (UAEX): https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/FSA2213.pdf

• Cercospora Leaf Blight in Soybeans (Crop Protection Network): https://cropprotectionnetwork.org/encyclopedia/cercospora-leaf-blight-of-soybean#:~:text=Cercospora%20leaf%20blight%20is%20caused,leaves%20exposed%20to%20the%20sun.

• Frogeye Leaf Spot in Soybeans (Crop Protection Network): https://cropprotectionnetwork.org/encyclopedia/frogeye-leaf-spot-of-soybean

• Purple Seed Stain (Crop Protection Network): https://cropprotectionnetwork.org/encyclopedia/purple-seed-stain-of-soybean

Market Update

Scott Stiles

Across the board, all grains were under pressure this week.  Trading in the rice market this week has been characterized by wide, 30 to near 50 cent trading ranges and heavier than normal volume.  It’s month end and quarter end and the funds are trying to decide where they want to be ahead of Monday’s June 30 Acreage and Grain Stocks reports.  For the speculators, it is difficult to find a reason to be long the grains.  Growing conditions have been optimal in the Midwest.  For rice, less-than-impressive export commitments and large global supplies have limited how far price rallies could stretch.  However, the acreage story has offered some life to the rice market since mid-May.

June 30 USDA Reports: Coming up Monday we’ll see the much-awaited NASS Acreage, Rice Stocks and quarterly Grain Stocks reports.  These will all be released at 11:00 a.m. Central.  Link to NASS’ website:  https://www.nass.usda.gov/

For total U.S. rice acres, the trade is expecting a modest reduction from the March intentions of 2.895 million.  The average trade estimate is 2.88 million acres, with a range of expectations from 2.7 million to 3 million.  Most likely, we’ll see a total rice acreage number below 2.88 million given that USDA has already reduced their estimate of planted acres by 70,000 in the June WASDE to 2.83 million.

There seems to be little doubt that producers ran short of time to plant all the rice they wanted to.  Strength in the rice market over the past month likely confirms this idea.  We look for a sizeable decrease in Arkansas rice acres from the March 31 planting intentions.  It is also possible rice acres were dialed back in Mississippi and Missouri as well.  Of note, managed funds have reduced their net short position in rice over the past four weeks by 2,287 contracts; equivalent to almost 10.2 million bushels.

The new Rice Stocks and Acreage numbers will be reflected in the next WASDE report scheduled for July 11.  For reference, the March 31 intentions indicated 2.24 million acres of long-grain and 627,000 acres of medium grain.  The table below provides a state-by-state breakdown of intended rice acres from NASS’ March 31 Prospective Plantings survey.

Table 3.  2025 Intended Rice Acres, March 31.

Export Sales:  Nothing too exciting in Thursday’s Export Sales report.  The normal line up of buyers were featured last week, with Honduras picking up 11,400 tons of long-grain rough rice and Mexico in for 500 tons.  There were cancellations by Venezuela (4,000 tons) and Unknown (12,000 tons).  As we’ve mentioned in recent reports, old crop rough rice sales have been the laggard this year on reduced sales to Mexico and Venezuela.  Long-grain milled rice sales are on par with 2023/24 with better sales volume to Iraq and Saudi Arabia.  No new crop export sales have been reported yet for either rough or milled rice.

Fig. 4.  CME September 2025 Rough Rice Futures, Daily Chart.

DD50 Rice Management Program is Live

The DD50 Rice Management Program is live and ready for fields to be enrolled for the 2025 season.  All log-in and producer information has been retained from the 2024 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.