Arkansas Rice Update 7-11-25

by Jarrod Hardke, Rice Extension Agronomist - July 11, 2025

Arkansas Rice Update 2025-17

July 11, 2025

Jarrod Hardke, Scott Stiles, & Camila Nicolli

“You can ponder perpetual motion, fix your mind on a crystal day.”

Another Week

While the crop is further along, progress still has an odd feel to it.  Something about they way this entire season has gone continues to have everyone including the rice crop a little off kilter.

Plant to plant and field to field, “uneven” is the word of the year for this rice crop.  Most years I’m reassuring folks that fields not being tabletop but having a little of a rolling look can be a good thing – rapid aggressive growth under good conditions.  This year though, the growth is so erratic throughout the entire field, and even on tillers of the same plants, that’s tough to give the same reassurance.  Maybe “uncertain” is as good a word as “uneven”.

Adding to current concerns are the nighttime temperatures.  Whether in south or north part of the state, nighttime temps are hovering near the 75-degree mark which is a little high especially for the extended period at which we’ve been staying there.  Primarily I mean that it’s stressful on rice during this period of reproductive growth.  We know that once rice heads out and we’re undergoing grain fill that it can increase chalkiness, but exact impacts at this stage are less certain other than we know it’s stressful.

If you were standing in the right spot this week you may have received a good rain to help with irrigation efforts.  One step to the left of that spot may have been more rain than you bargained for while one step to the right of that spot may have received no rain.  Mid-summer isolated thunderstorms doing their thing.  And of course, there are more of those expected this weekend into early next week.  If you missed a rain last week, I hope you catch that million dollar one this week.

Read on below for more information on the Rice Leadership Development Program, general rice issues, sheath blight, and rice markets.

Listen to the Podcast:  Rice & Advice – Midseason and Boot Nitrogen

Let us know if we can help.

Fig. 1.  NOAA 7-day precipitation forecast.

Ricing Around

Jarrod Hardke

• We’re entering heading stages for more and more rice. While we need temperature relief, at least as we get to heading, rice water use begins to slow and we can hopefully begin to see some relief on our irrigation efforts.  While drain timing recommendations in the DD50 Rice Management Program remain the same as in the past (25 days after 50% heading for long grains and 30 days after for medium grains), the predicted time to reach 20% grain moisture has been changed this year.  Based on evaluation of harvest grain moisture for the past several years, the predicted time to reach 20% grain moisture has been extended in the program by 5 days.  So now instead of 10 days after the drain timing, it’s 15 days.  Hopefully this change will lead to more accurate predictions of rice reaching 20% moisture, meaning that we’ll be more on time when we take our first combine sample instead of ending up too early then being late when we try again.

Table 1.  Percent of acres to reach 50% Heading by week according to DD50 Rice Management Program enrollment.

• With a lot of Regiment applied this year, you may have noticed some sensitivity on certain varieties. The medium grains and aromatics are always a little sensitive to ALS chemistry so those are usually no surprise, though it did sneak up on some this year.  Ozark has been notable the past two years for appearing more sensitive for a long grain.  In generally all cases it has come out of it with no long-term issues.  Some limited trial work from two years ago displayed some varying ALS sensitivity across a number of cultivars, but even without management attempts to improve the condition of the rice, little to no yield loss was observed.  Still, a reminder to be cautious when applying high rates of ALS herbicides on certain cultivars, and that this response can increase when stacking multiple ALS herbicides such as Regiment and Permit.

• Blast reports have not continued with the frequency it seemed that they might have just a couple weeks ago. A good thing!  But be mindful that scattered storms, warm temps, and high humidity (plus difficulty maintaining flood depth) can lead to issues with blast yet.  Refer to the MP154 or Rice Management Guide for guidance on timing of fungicides for blast prevention on susceptible cultivars and increase the flood depth on flooded rice to help suppress blast development.

Disease Update

Camilla Nicolli

Sheath Blight Alert:  What You Need to Know

We are seeing a significant increase in sheath blight pressure in our fields this week.  During recent zig zag scouting of a field of CLM05, we found 100% positive hits for sheath blight.  This confirms what we mentioned in last week’s update – the weather conditions (high humidity, warm temperatures, and frequent rainfall) have been highly favorable for sheath blight development across the region.  Other varieties and hybrids have seen upticks in sheath blight pressure as well.

🌾 Why This Matters:

Sheath blight, caused by Rhizoctonia solani, can spread rapidly under these conditions and cause major yield losses if not managed properly.  We strongly encourage growers to scout their fields regularly and take action early.

🧪 Send Us Your Samples:

We are currently conducting fungicide resistance testing, and we’re interested in sheath blight samples, and we are especially interested in samples from fields where fungicide has been applied without visible control.  If you suspect reduced efficacy or see persistent disease symptoms even after application, please send us a sample.  Your submission helps us track resistance trends and support better recommendations for your region.

📦 How to Send Samples:

Reach out to our team or drop off samples at 2900 Hwy. 130 E., Stuttgart, AR 72160.  Be sure to include information about fungicide use, application timing, and variety.

Let’s stay ahead of sheath blight together.  Early detection and proper management are key!

Fig. 2.  Sheath blight on CLM05 (courtesy Dave Freeze).

Market Update

Scott Stiles

USDA’s July WASDE was interesting, including both old and new crop revisions.  As expected, new crop production was lowered significantly following the changes to 2025 planted and harvested acreage in the June 30 Acreage report.  We also saw some old crop demand revisions that reflect the sluggish rough rice exports.

Starting with the old crop 24/25 balance sheet, USDA lowered exports by 1.5 million to 63.5 million cwt.  This is USDA’s lowest export estimate for 24/25 thus far.  Unfortunately, it might go lower still.  At 63.5 million cwt., exports are estimated to be down 15.5% from last year.  Through July 3^rd, old crop export sales are at least 18% behind last year.  There were no adjustments to old crop domestic use.  The 1.5 million cwt. reduction in exports went directly to ending stocks, increasing that total to 36.8 million cwt.  The 24/25 season average farm price was lowered by 10 cents to $14.10 per cwt. or $6.35 per bushel.

The 2025/26 new crop balance sheet saw multiple changes.  USDA incorporated the June 30 Acreage in their production estimate.  This month, U.S. long-grain harvested acres were revised down to 2.01 million.  Although not “explicitly” shown in the long-grain balance sheet, we can infer that USDA is using a yield estimate of about 7,600 pounds per acre.  Given that, total production was lowered this month by 6.9 million to 152.8 million cwt.  This is down 19.2 million cwt. from last year or about 11%.  Some of the production cut was offset by the 1.5 million increase in beginning stocks this month.

In a disappointing turn of events, USDA offset all of this month’s production cut with a 6 million cwt. reduction in new crop demand.  Domestic use was lowered by 4 million and exports by 2 million.  The net result was a 0.6 million increase in 2025/26 ending stocks to 34.6 million cwt.

Oddly enough, the projected 2025/26 long-grain season-average farm price was increased by 50 cents to $13.00 or $5.85 per bushel.  Note the projected PLC payment based on the new Reference Price of $7.61 per bushel is estimated to be $1.76 per bushel.  In comparison to the June estimate, the 2025 PLC payment would increase about $1.09 per bushel for long-grain under the new provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

It is possible that budget sequestration could reduce the size of any 2025 ARC or PLC payments by an estimated 5.7 percent.  That is not accounted for in our projected PLC payments.

USDA will review their season average farm price projection each month throughout the marketing year.  Any 2025 PLC payments are not expected to be made until October 2026.

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.