Arkansas Rice Update 7-4-24

by Jarrod Hardke, Rice Extension Agronomist - July 4, 2024

Arkansas Rice Update 2024-14

July 4, 2024

Jarrod Hardke, Nick Bateman, Ben Thrash, and Scott Stiles

Hurry Up and Wait

Hopefully everyone gets a chance to enjoy the holiday or at least part of the weekend.  With no more than some scattered rains lately, many are still making laps around the farm chasing irrigation.  Next week’s forecast is cool and wet, certainly for mid-July.  A repeat of last year?  Let’s hope not on the sheath blight front, as it really blew up last year under similar conditions which were ideal for it.

We’re about to start really rolling into a lot more rice heading with the bulk of acres falling into the July 8-21 window.  Rainy days generally aren’t overly concerning during early flowering because rice generally tries to avoid those conditions – it’s the bright sunny days with pop-up showers that can really tag rice during flowering.  But we can expect a little bit of a slowdown for the crop with cloudy, overcast conditions.

With all that flowering, what will happen with rice stink bug this year?  More on control options and economics below.  The only thing that’s certain is we can’t know what the RSB pressure will really be until heading cranks up.

Continue to keep an eye out for blast and be prepared to make preventative applications for neck and panicle blast if conditions, disease, and cultivar susceptibility warrant.  Remember we can’t control neck and panicle blast after the fact, we have to prevent it.

Now let’s get that ‘around the 4^th of July rain’ this week everyone needs.

Let us know if we can help.

Rice Stink Bug Management in 2024

Options and Economics

Nick Bateman and Ben Thrash

As some of our earliest rice has begun to head this week, rice stink bug (RSB) numbers have been all over the board.  We have received some reports of 30-50 RSB on 10 sweeps in areas where these are the only fields headed.  More commonly folks are finding around 1 per sweep or 10 on 10 sweeps.  Hopefully with a lot of our rice acres being squeezed into a relatively short planting window, more rice will begin to head and spread this population out over a lot of acres and reduce the levels below threshold.

Speaking of thresholds, we need to discuss some of the suggestions we have for this year.  With the decrease in efficacy seen with lambda-cyhalothrin since 2020 we are looking at doubling the cost of a single application for RSB control.  With this in mind, and our data from numerous sites over the last 6 years, we suggest raising the early season threshold (flowering and milk) to 10 per 10 sweeps and sticking to that throughout the growing season.  We have rarely documented yield loss from rice stink bug in our plots unless numbers exceed 15 per 10 sweeps.  The only reason we have not officially changed the threshold is because we are trying to repeat these studies in much larger plots to ensure that there is no yield loss at these RSB levels.

Lastly on thresholds, let fields et to a minimum of 75% headed before making applications.  If using products such as Tenchu, we want to get as much product on heads as possible to increase odds of residual control.

As previously mentioned, our only good option currently is Tenchu.  It has performed well in our studies in recent years (Tables 1 and 2) and has provided better economic returns than pyrethroids.  While we have heard from multiple folks that money is tight and they can’t afford the Tenchu price tag, we also cannot afford not to spray RSB when they exceed threshold.  On average we gained $24/acre when using Tenchu compared to not spraying at all and actually lost money when using pyrethroids.  These economics were figured on state average yields, so the price increase will only go up as the yield potential goes up.

At this point I think it is a given, but lambda is not providing the control it once did and if you are going to use it, you need to know that 50-60% control is about the best it is going to do.  If this fits your situation then it’s still the cheapest and most readily available option, just realize there is essentially no residual, and the control is pretty poor and gets worse later into the season we go.

One way to get the “most bang for your buck” with Tenchu is to spray during the 2^nd or 3^rd week of heading (when heads are just beginning to turn down).  It has the residual to get us to our termination timing of 60% straw-colored kernels.  Our current situation doesn’t really allow the flexibility to spray twice with Tenchu, so as mentioned above, if we have numbers of 10 per 10 sweeps or less during the first 2 weeks of heading, keep the product in the jug and apply once we start moving to soft dough.  The one consistent thing we have seen is the quality losses associated with above threshold populations of RSB during the second 2 weeks of heading and it can get costly.

The last thing we want to mention is the current status of Endigo ZCX.  We have been receiving calls since this winter on whether we would be getting another Section 18 this year or not.  Currently there is a large quantity of Tenchu available, and EPA is aware of it.  Until this runs out, we have no legal justification to submit.  We can assure that if/when stocks run out, we are fully prepared to submit for a crisis exemption.  Time will tell.  Call us if you have any questions.

Rice Market Update

Scott Stiles

As a reminder, Chicago grain markets will be closed July 4th.  Trading resumes Friday morning, July 5th, at 8:30 a.m. central time and closes at 1:20 p.m.

We mentioned last week that technical support was starting to give way in the September 2024 contract.  With last Friday’s close below the 50-day moving average (red line), stronger volume selling ensued Monday with a quick test of the 100-day moving average (blue line) at $15.03.  The $15.03 level is also a 50% retracement of the rally from the February low of $14.22 to the June high of $15.83.  With a close below the 100-day moving average and $15 in today’s session (7/3), the next downside objective could be $14.83 ½; which is a 62% retracement of the February to June rally.  Also, the September contract is entering “oversold” territory per technical indicators.  Maybe the July 12th WASDE will be the catalyst for a turnaround?

In the July WASDE, USDA will plug-in the results of the June Acreage.  We may see further acreage revisions when FSA’s certified acreage reporting begins on a monthly basis in August.  From the table below note that U.S. long-grain acreage was reduced by 22,000 acres from the March intentions.  With no changes in USDA’s current yield projection of 7,449 pounds, we should expect the July 2024 production estimate to be lower by approximately 1.6 million cwt.

We talked a bit last week about the twists and turns to getting to a lower 2024/25 ending stocks number.  One subject that is still very interesting to follow is old crop (23/24) exports.  In the June WASDE, USDA estimated 23/24 long-grain exports to be 74 million cwt. (see graph below).  That is up 49% or 24.2 million cwt. from the previous year. 

However, old crop exports are more impressive when we dig into the weekly Export Sales data and find that total long-grain sales (rough, milled, and brown combined) for 23/24 are up 80% from the prior year.  Furthermore, 91% of these sales have already been shipped.  It is possible we see USDA continue the trend of increasing their old crop export estimate as they have done in each of the last five (5) months.  Further increases in old crop exports should result in a smaller carry-in and lower total supplies for the new crop balance sheet.

Next week, much will be revealed Friday and we’ll review the July supply/demand numbers.  Have a wonderful 4th of July.

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 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 (arkansascrops.uada.edu) 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 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.