From the Editor

It’s time to get your game on

2021 is in the rear view mirror, and you’ve been planning for the upcoming season for the past few months. As temperatures warm up across the Rice Belt, it’s time to get your game on. It’s no secret you will have more than the “normal” challenges this year, but several articles in the March issue of Rice Farming offer some tips for how to deal with them.

In a recent edition of the Mississippi Crop Situation podcast out of Stoneville, Mississippi, the “Crop Doctors,” Drs. Don Cook, Jason Bond and Tom Allen, Jr. with Mississippi State University sat down to discuss how to manage the 2022 crop with supply chain and product availability Carroll Smith challenges. Editor

For example, Allen suggested taking note of variety selection and factor that into your herbicide decision and application timing. This, he said, could help trim costs at the back end, rather than attempting to save those costs at the front end with seeding applications and having more of an issue later.

Bond said knowing both your short-term and long-term goals and having plans is the key for making crop management decisions this season.

“Plans, plural, because chances are you’re going to encounter a situation in 2022 where something you want is not going to be available, or the price is going to be such that you are going to seek out alternatives,” he said.

Read the synopsis of their discussion on page 12 — “Possible product availability issues.”

Carbon sequestration is another hot topic in the rice industry, but the proliferation of information on the subject contains a lot of conjecture and not so much hard data. The research agronomists with G&H Associates in Stuttgart, Arkansas, said they were asked by an environmental, forward-thinking sustainable company to evaluate five rice varieties or hybrids for yield, biomass and percent carbon of rice roots, straw, whole grains and brokens and bran and rice hulls for total carbon uptake during the growing season to develop baseline information on these measured parameters.

They accepted the assignment last season and reported their findings in the article on page 14 — “2021 rice carbon uptake data.” As a rice farmer, it might be a good idea to take a look at these hard numbers. As the Arkansas researchers said, “We have to stand up and explain our agricultural profession along with our farming and sustainable farming practices to those we may be interacting with in the carbon markets. Otherwise, we may not be appropriately compensated in our sustainable farming and carbon sequestration practices.” Definitely food for thought.

Carroll

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By Betsy Ward President and CEO USA Rice

Climate-smart ag — rice can and should lead the way

USA Rice and Ducks Unlimited have been investing in practices and partnerships to sustain the future of rice since 2015. While scientists have been raising alarms on climate change for decades, it’s in the more recent past that private citizens have taken action — like home recycling — and started demanding more. Companies followed suit with their own initiatives, from the simple (switching to LED light bulbs) to the transformative (reducing consumer packaging). The U.S. government has supported and pushed these types of changes in fits and starts for many years, but we’ve just seen something astounding with the Biden Administration’s Department of Agriculture pledging $1 billion to fund climate-smart farming initiatives. While the full scope of the program is still taking shape, it is clear that the new Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program will help create market opportunities that benefit growers who have implemented and expanded practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon. The U.S. rice industry should be held up as an unparalleled example of sustainability and land stewardship. We’ve reduced greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 41% and energy use by 34% since 1980. And we’ve announced that by 2030, we’ll shave another 13% off GHGs and reduce energy use by another 10%.

Successful partnerships

The U.S. rice industry has proven success with unique and broad partnerships. Since 2015, USA Rice and Ducks Unlimited have been investing in practices and partnerships to sustain the future of rice. We’ve attracted major corporate and philanthropic supporters, including Anheuser-Busch, the Walmart Foundation, Mosaic, Nestle Purina and many more. Through those partnerships, we’ve secured tens of millions of dollars in government grants and support that goes directly to rice farmers, allowing them to adopt sustainable practices that are making a positive impact on the ground.

Simply put, U.S. rice is the poster child for climate-smart agriculture, and this is the message we will continue to deliver to USDA, Congress, the White House and the marketplace.

Don’t forget the bottom line I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t say that one of the key pillars of sustainability is economic. While reducing greenhouse gas emissions is essential in its own right, any climate action taken by our rice farmers needs to also make sense for their operations. The Climate-Smart Commodities program needs to include recognition of the fact that not every practice is possible for every grower. We want growers to have the freedom to tailor their sustainability practices to what’s possible, practical and beneficial to everyone, including the environment, and to be rewarded for the positive outcomes — even if their path differed from that of their neighbors. A one-size-fits-all approach that saddles farmers with onerous or impossible restrictions is disrespectful and counterproductive. While this new program focuses on GHG emissions and energy use reduction, the wildlife habitat we provide also improves soil nutrients, reduces pesticide use and aides with straw decomposition. Future environmental initiatives from the Biden administration should acknowledge the impressive diversity of contributions from U.S. rice farmers, because climate change is a complex issue with complex solutions. It will be exciting to see this program’s collaborations and innovations, and to witness U.S. rice farmers leading American agriculture. At USA Rice we will do everything we can to keep our industry front and center here. The greatest gains will be achieved when producers, the market and the government work together. We’re more than happy to help the Biden administration reach their climate-smart agriculture goals.

To Control Weeds, Be Timely And Watchful

Amy Beth Dowdy

ABD Crop Consulting LLC Dexter, Missouri

When I was born, I was the only girl in a nursery full of boys. It’s been that way my entire life, but I am comfortable in that environment and blaze my own trail. As a small child, I sat in the front yard and cried to go to the field with Daddy, who called me his little dirt dauber. When he did take me with him, I remember drinking out of the irrigation pipe and playing in the mud. I started “farming” at a very young age. In 1990, I started scouting rice in college and opened my own consulting business in 1996.

In 2021, we had a good planting window. Then it kept raining, which caused some hiccups. The pre-emergence herbicides were activated by all the rain, but wet conditions caused problems getting out the preflood herbicides and preflood fertilizer, leading to some delays on our zero grade fields. We had to replant 250 acres of rice due to poor stands in zero grade fields. After a less than ideal start, we were blessed with one of the highest yielding rice crops we have ever had.

Loyant® Herbicide Takes Out Pigweed In Row Rice

In Missouri, we fight pigweed in row rice and are starting to have problems with crab grass. If we are watchful and timely, we can control pigweed if we overlay pre-emergence herbicides and then apply Loyant herbicide right before the rice canopies. Loyant does a good job on pigweeds.

We have a new species of barnyardgrass that is resistant to Facet and propanil. It’s not a widespread area, but we are having some issues trying to get a handle on it. We also are having problems with white margin sedge in a few fields. Loyant seems to work best, but the sedge is so prolific, it’s hard to get it covered the first time. It may take a one-two spray in some of those fields. Do we follow up after Loyant with Basagran or propanil? We will continue to do some testing and hopefully get this weed figured out before it gets more of a foothold here.

In conventional rice, I use RebelEX® herbicide and Facet herbicide to clean up the grass, sprangletop and smartweed before I go to flood.

Today, the cost of fertilizer and fuel is weighing on farmers, but they need to stick to their crop rotation. The price of soybeans may be grand, but soybeans can sometimes drown out or burn up. That usually doesn’t happen to a rice crop. Stay with your established rotation, spread your risk and hang in there. • B.S. degree in agronomy, Mississippi State University, 1992. • Established ABD Crop Consulting LLC in 1996. Consults on rice in Southeast Missouri.

• Member, National Alliance of Independent Crop

Consultants. Served on the NAICC executive board, 2011-15.

• Member: Missouri contingency of the Arkansas Agricultural

Consultants Association, USA Rice and Pleasant Grove

Community Church. Works on Stoddard County Fair Board. • 2020 Rice Consultant of the Year.

• Enjoys spending time with family: mom Pam; brother Matt and his wife, Jess; nephew Atom; niece Maci and Maci’s family: husband Nick Harris and their three daughters:

Landri, Raegan and Falynn. When time permits, Dowdy goes to antique auctions and reads.

1. In Missouri, we fight pigweed in row rice. 2. If we are watchful and timely, we can control pigweed if we overlay pre-emergence herbicides and then apply

Loyant® herbicide right before the rice canopies. 3. We also have problems with white margin sedge.

Loyant seems to work best, but the sedge is so prolific, it’s hard to get it covered the first time. It may take a one-two spray. 4. In conventional rice, I use RebelEX® herbicide and Facet herbicide to clean up grass, sprangletop and smartweed before I go to flood.

Sponsored by

Recap: Be Timely And Watchful For Weeds

Rice grower Steve Neader (left) and Igancio Madrigal of DNH Farms install a specially designed board in a rice box at the pilot salmon research project.

Helping ns and feathers

Like ducks and geese, salmon may be next to benefit from California rice fields.

By Jim Morris California Rice Commission

Ageneration ago, it may have seemed far-fetched that Sacramento Valley rice elds could play a vital role for millions of birds. However, changes in rice growing methods in the early 1990s — a shi from burning elds a er harvest to adding a few inches of water to break down le over rice straw — led to such an occurrence. Area rice elds are now home to nearly 230 wildlife species, including 7 to 10 million ducks and geese every fall and winter. e “surrogate wetlands” are now crucial to the massive Paci c Flyway wildlife migration.

California’s struggling salmon may be next to bene t from those same rice elds. is is year three of pilot salmon research by the California Rice Commission, UC Davis, California Trout and other partners. is project will test and re ne rice farming practices designed to provide habitat and food for sh. If successful, baby salmon will rear in ood bypass rice elds in the winter, when no rice is grown, then head o to the ocean.

Every step of the process is being monitored to understand the best practices moving forward. If all goes well, this project will move from pilot to voluntary adoption on suitable Sacramento Valley rice farms. is work is supported by a grant from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, major sponsors including Syngenta, State Water Contractors and a long list of contributors. Additionally, there are major modi cations to existing water infrastructure planned that will allow juvenile salmon on their way to sea better

access to food-rich oodplain habitats. is nutrient-rich food web develops naturally in winter ooded rice elds, due to organic matter and sunlight.

Finally, the Fish Food program is working with rice farmers and wetland managers on the protected or “dry side” of levees. While these elds and wetlands are not directly connected to the river and cannot host salmon, they can still support salmon populations by creating sh food. A dense invertebrate food web rapidly grows in nutrient-rich, sun-soaked shallow waters of ooded rice elds. Several weeks a er being inundated, this veritable bug bu et can be strategically drained into the river to provide much-needed nutrition for small, juvenile salmon migrating downstream to the ocean.

A rewilding e ort

Jacob Katz, senior scientist with CalTrout is a passionate advocate for salmon. He said he is very hopeful that the collaborative work being done in the Sacramento Valley will ultimately help sh, as well as birds, people and farms.

“ ere are two big reasons for my optimism,” Katz remarked. “ e rst is the science. It’s really clear that, if we meet every link in the chain, every type of habitat that these critters need, including salmon, we can expect a really dramatic response — an increase in abundance. e second is collaboration. Everywhere I turn, I see farmers dedicated to more ducks, more geese, more salmon — and opening their farms to a rewilding; a way of thinking about welcoming the wild back onto the farm.

“We’re not talking about going back. We are still going to be one of the most productive farming areas on Earth. But, in the non-growing season, oodplain farms can be managed as fantastic habitat for multiple species.”

Generous support and contributions

Pilot salmon research is supported by a grant from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Major sponsors are Syngenta and State Water Contractors.

Other contributors include: • American Commodity

Company, LLC. • California Almonds – Almond

Board of California. • California Family Foods. • California Ricelands.

Waterbird Foundation. • California Rice Research

Board. • Conaway Preservation Group. • Corteva Agriscience. • Grow West. • Lundberg Family Farms. • NCWA – Northern California

Water Association. • NovaSource Tessenderlo

Group. • River Garden Farms. • S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation. • The Nigiri Project. • Valent.

Jim Morris: Water is hardly ever an easy subject in our state. Finding enough for the environment, cities and farms is frequently contentious. One creative plan involves what at rst may seem like an unlikely pairing — rice elds and salmon. e salmon project involves many partners — the Rice Commission, UC Davis, landowners, water districts and California Trout. Jacob Katz has a PhD in ecology and is se-

Qnior scientist with CalTrout. Jacob, there are several things that are going on to help salmon. Can you tell us about what’s happening to try to improve that population? &A Jacob Katz: All three of the e orts underway involve oodplains or the marshlands that run adjacent to our rivers and tributaries here in the Sacramento Valley. e rst we call sh food, and that’s understanding that bugs that sh eat, which make sh populations, really aren’t grown in the rivers themselves, but in the adjacent marshlands. And most of those marshlands are no longer attached to the river. So maybe 95% of the marshes that were once ooded by the Sacramento River and its tributaries are now behind levees.

And the sh food program works with farmers that now — for the most part — farm those lands to mimic those ood patterns out on their elds to spread and slow water mid-winter when they’re not farming to allow bugs to grow in those elds. And then they actively drain that oodplain-rich water, that natural wealth, back to the river where the sh are.

A University of California, Davis, researcher inspects the protective cages holding young salmon as part of the pilot salmon research project in Robbins, California.

e second thing is actively managing elds within our bypasses, within the oodways that are the parts of the former oodplain, which are still hydrologically connected to the river. And then the third is actually changing, upgrading o en obsolete infrastructure so that it allows the river and sh to connect to those oodplain bypasses more frequently and for a longer duration.

Jim Morris: Let’s start with the sh food. It’s amazing at rst glance that there’s not enough food in the river, but that’s certainly true. Correct? How much of a di erence can the food that’s being raised in rice elds be for the salmon?

Jacob Katz: Well, over the last 10 years or so, we’ve been running around the Sacramento Valley, throwing our plankton nets, looking for bugs in every kind of aquatic habitat. And what we found is that the rivers themselves are essentially food deserts. ere’s very little food for small sh to eat there.

Whereas the adjacent marshlands, whether that’s a ooded eld or a marsh habitat managed for waterfowl or a natural marsh, all of those are teaming with invertebrate life. With what I call oating let — the exact right kind of food if you’re a young salmon, trying to get strong and t on your journey to sea.

Jim Morris: When we look at the pilot program of raising salmon in rice elds, it works out perfectly because there’s nothing grown in the elds during the winter. How optimistic are you

Qwith what you’ve seen so far with that project?

Jacob Katz: Well, what we see is that when sh are exposed to the kind of conditions, the physical, or I call them biophysical conditions, because the depth and duration of ooding that you would’ve seen before, you allow a sh to recognize the river sys-&A tem that it evolved in, that it’s adapted to. When you put a salmon into a puddle, what you nd is that there is ample food there and these little guys are swimming around with their eyes closed and their mouth open, getting big, getting fat. And that’s really critical because it increases their chances, not just of making it out of the river system, but critically it increases their survival in the ocean so that they have a much better chance of returning as an adult. And that is one of the most important things we can do to bring back these salmon populations in the Central Valley. Jim Morris: So the sh that are grown in the rice elds, how is their survivability relating to the wild population?

Jacob Katz: It looks like sh that nd something to eat, and that’s what the rice elds really provide is access to the kind of habitats that sh would’ve been rearing or feeding in previously. And when they do that, when they get food, they get strong and

Jacob Katz has a PhD in ecology and is senior scientist with CalTrout. they have a better chance making it out of the river system. e Rice Commission and UC Davis have done some great studies showing that their survival improves on the way out to the Golden Gate, but what’s even more important is that ocean survival. at leaving fresh water well, their survival’s increased, but it’s coming back where you get the really big payo . at’s what we’re all a er is making sure that more of those juvenile sh return as adults and a bigger sh that hits the Marine environment, that hits the salt, that’s a sh that’s more likely to return as an adult.

Jim Morris: Looking at another big aspect of this is making sure the infrastructure is correct, not only to help cities and farms, but also make sure that sh are healthy. What can be done there?

Jacob Katz: Several things can be done. One thing is to increase the habitat bene t to the sh that actually get onto our oodplain bypasses. ese are the ood protection areas in the Sacramento Valley, in the Sutter and Yolo Bypasses. And the Rice Commission is piloting a study now that helps manage rice elds in those bypasses so that they better serve the salmon when the salmon get out in there. e other is increasing the frequency in which sh can actually get out of that food desert of a river and on to that food bu et that is the bypass, or is the oodplain. at’s done by putting gates or lower areas within these levees and weirs that allow the river to spill out of its heavily channelized leveed bank more o en to access, to hydrologically connect from the river onto the oodplain, and allow those small sh to get out to where the food is.

Jim Morris: So this new type of thinking, actually I guess it’s a nod toward the old way things happened in historic California. How optimistic are you that this is going to work?

Jacob Katz: I’m incredibly optimistic. When you allow a salmon to recognize the river system that it’s adapted to, that it evolved in, that when we manage our rivers and our farmlands in such a way that we mimic those natural patterns — the slowing and spreading of ood water out over the shallow marshlands, that once really dominated and characterized the Sacramento and San

JIM MORRIS/CALIFORNIA RICE COMMISSION Young salmon are measured during tagging.

JIM MORRIS/CALIFORNIA RICE COMMISSION

JIM MORRIS/CALIFORNIA RICE COMMISSION Sacramento Valley rice fields are now home to nearly 230 wildlife species, including 7 to 10 million ducks and geese every fall and winter. The “surrogate wetlands” are now crucial to the massive Pacific Flyway wildlife migration. The state’s struggling salmon may be next to benefit from these same rice fields.

Joaquin Valleys. What we get is an explosion, a natural explosion of biomass, of abundance.

We’ve seen that this works with the fantastic e orts from the rice industry and regulators and others that revolve around making farm elds better for waterfowl and for shorebirds. And now in Butte Creek, we see that when we do the same thing, when we focus on creating the kind of habitat that salmon need at each part of their life history, making sure that the small sh on their way to

Qthe ocean have something to eat, making sure that the big sh on their way back have unfettered access to their spawning streams and have adequate cold water for holding in before they spawn.

If you hit every link in that chain, we see that the sh populations respond and respond dramatically. We can get very rapid increases &A in population similar to what we’ve seen with ducks and geese in the Sacramento Valley. I believe that we can have the same thing for salmon, and it really takes this landscape-scale approach where we’re not doing this on hundreds of acres or even thousands of acres, but tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of acres. And it takes the collaboration of farmers, regulators and environmentalists all working together to create an ecologically functioning valley. And when we do that, we can create a valley that once again can create salmon abundance, and in so doing can create a system where water can much more easily be moved from where it’s more abundant to where it’s utilized by both agriculture and our cities. And the second is collaboration. I see wherever I turn farmers dedicated to more ducks, to more geese, to more salmon and really opening their farms to a rewilding, a way of thinking about welcoming the wild back onto the farm. We’re not talking about going back. We are still going to be one of the most productive agricultural regions on earth, but in the non-growing season, oodplain farms can be managed as just fantastic habitat for multiple species and can be done in such a way where they spread in slow waters so that that water sinks back into our aquifers to the bank of our most precious resource, water. So when we have functioning river ecosystems, when we have

Jim Morris: I’m reminded of what grower Fritz Durst has said many times focusing on the x, not the ght, which is a great way to go if you can do it. It seems to be happening in the Sacramento Valley. So when we look ahead, Jacob, in our lifetimes, do you foresee a water situation that has improved to a point that is best serving the cities, the environment and farms? Jacob Katz: Well, absolutely, and that’s because we need to get the most pop per drop, right? And there’s two real big reasons for my optimism. e rst is the science. It’s really clear that if we meet every link in the chain, every type of habitat that these critters need — including salmon — we can expect a real dramatic response, an increase in abundance. a functioning Sacramento Valley, what we really have is a system that works for ns, for feathers, for farms and for people, and is better able to meet the challenges of a changing climate with resilience and ultimately with this recovery of natural abundance. Jim Morris: As the salmon work ramps up, we will have much more in the coming weeks. For now, I appreciate spending time with Jacob Katz on this important subject. You can nd out much more at podcast.calrice.org. Please subscribe and tell your friends. Jim Morris is communications manager for the California Rice Commission. He may be reached at jim.morris@calrice.org.