Rice Farming January 2021

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PROFITABLE PRODUCTION STRATEGIES

JANUARY 2021

New Texas long-grain release beats Presidio SW Louisiana family continues conservation practices

Up, up and away Drone technology helps map field elevation

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MW 0BEG02256-Rice-AG78 12/20

March January2018 2021

COLUMNS

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Vol. Vol. 52, 55, No. 4 2

COVER STORY

4 From the Editor

Rice'sindustry The long history has had bucks enough changeshot 'what's forina food' while trends

5 Guest USA Rice Update 6 Column New year,sustainability fresh start Rice and

8 USA Rice Update D PARTM E Npriorities TS RiceE industry sets for the next Farm Bill

18 Industry News

Up, up Here to stay? and away

Rice business scene

DEPARTMENTS 20 Specialists Speaking 19 IndustrytoNews Big changes Louisiana rice Rice business cultivars on tapscene for 2021

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20 Specialist Speaking

The California rice industry prepares for what may become annual armyworm Drone technology helps map field elevation to create cut sheets and MIRI maps. infestations.

drone on the farm of Scott Matthews, who grows rice and soybeans near Weiner, Arkansas.

ON THE COVER: Armyworms once Photoplagued

by VickyCalifornia Boyd rice growers again in 2017.

F EE AA TT U UR RE ES S

ON THEherbicide COVER: University of can Early mistakes Arkansas’ Mike Hamilton (left)long flies a plague you all season

Photo by Luis Espino, University of California Cooperative Extension

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projections cloud long-term outlook.

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Passing down the passion SW Louisiana farm family continues and Floods aid expansion

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Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta farmers express New tools in the doubts tool boxon ‘carbon farming.’

Several new crop-protection products

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Stay up-to-date with the latest from Rice Farming. www.facebook.com/ ricefarming1 Follow us on Twitter: @RiceFarming TWITTER: @RICEFARMING

Without sizable The yin and yangacreage decreases and demand Shorter suppliesincreases, have shornprices up thecould market, for but the increased soften 2021 2018 crop.planting

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expands the conservation practices Giant invasive snail threatens the that previous generations started. rice-crawfish rotation in southwest Louisiana.

are available in time for this year’s rice season.

Honoring the Trinity River New Texas long-grain release offers stronger yield The smell ofpotential success than Presidio.

University of Arkansas breeding program releases new jasmine-type A look back, a look forward long grain.

LSU AgCenter leaders spotlight research work, state rice industry outlook during virtual presentation.

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Farm & Gin Show recap

Tight world rice supplies mean any

Rollercoaster disruption couldride push markets higher.

Arkansas’ 2020 season had its ups and downs but finished on a profitable note.

18 17 JANUARY MARCH 2018 2021

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From The

Editor

The industry has had enough changes for a while Change is inevitable, they say, and with the start of 2021 comes a number of shifts.

Dr. Mo Way, who for 38 years has been at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at Beaumont, will retire and ride into the sunset with wife Jeanie in February. The university already has posted a job notice for an assistant professor of rice pest management at Beaumont.

Dr. Don Groth, a Louisiana State University AgCenter plant pathologist, will retire in January after 37 years. The university in December posted a notice for assistant or associate plant pathology professor to be based at the H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station in Crowley.

Vicky Boyd For the past three years, Groth also served as Editor resident coordinator at Crowley. Dr. Dustin Harrell, AgCenter Extension rice specialist who served as station research coordinator, will assume the role of resident coordinator Feb. 1. Although he will continue to conduct his agronomy research, Harrell will step down as Extension rice specialist.

But don’t worry — Louisiana’s rice industry will be in good hands with the return of Dr. Ronnie Levy, who retired as state Extension soybean specialist in 2017 and was working part time as Louisiana Master Farmer Program coordinator.

Before he moved over to soybeans in 2008, Levy spent more than 20 years working with rice, soybeans, wheat, turfgrass, grain sorghum and corn as an AgCenter county agent in Acadia Parish.

Dr. Kent McKenzie, who has been at the California Rice Experiment Station since 1988, with the past 20 years as director, retired at the end of 2020. Dr. Russell Rasmussen, who had been serving as associate director for the past year, assumed the director’s position.

The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture also made quick work of filling the void created with Dr. Karen Moldenhauer’s retirement as rice breeder at the Rice Research and Extension Center in Stuttgart. Dr. Christian De Guzman, who spent four years as a breeder at Southeast Missouri State University’s Rice Research Farm in Malden, was hired as a breeder at Stuttgart. He hit the ground running, having begun his new job before Thanksgiving.

Moldenhauer also has been serving as interim director of the Rice Research Station since Dr. Bob Scott, who had been station director, was promoted to director of Arkansas’ Cooperative Extension Service in June 2020. The university plans to interview two candidates in mid-January and hopes to announce a new station director before the end of February, said Nathan Slaton, assistant director of the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

Mississippi State University currently is reviewing the vacancy created when Dr. Bobby Golden, Extension rice agronomist at the Delta Research and Extension Center, left for private industry in November.

“I suspect we will fill the position vacated by Dr. Golden but cannot say for sure or when,” said Dr. Darrin Dodds, head of the MSU Department of Plant and Soil Sciences.

And with that, I think we’ve all had enough changes for a while.

Vicky 4

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JANUARY 2021

RiceFaRming EDITORIAL/PRODUCTION Editor Vicky Boyd 209-505-3612 vlboyd@onegrower.com Copy Editor Amanda Huber ahuber@onegrower.com Art Director Ashley Kumpe akumpe@onegrower.com

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USA Rice

Update

New year, fresh start

I

By Betsy Ward

a handshake or real eye contact for granted.

My combination Christmas wish and New Years’ resolution is that we get back to safely traveling and gathering so we can meet in person in 2021.

Fingers crossed As I said, we’re off to a good start. Planning is already underway for the 2021 Rice Millers’ Convention in Idaho this summer and the 2021 USA Rice Outlook Conference scheduled for December in New Orleans.

Of course, both those events are a long way off. But I’ve got them on my calendar, and my fingers are crossed that they will take place and that I will be there, visiting with my rice family and making up for all this lost time!

Other ways 2021 can top 2020 is for us to see a continuation of the strong domestic rice sales we experienced for most of the year. It’s our hope that these increased retail sales, driven in part by the pandemic, will remain strong, even as we put COVID-19 in our rear view.

VICKY BOYD

President and CEO USA Rice

t seems like we spent a good portion of the past year counting the days until it would be over — and now it finally is.

We’re turning the page on what by all accounts was a pretty terrible year. At the risk of jinxing us, 2021 is off to a good start.

Most importantly, the scientific and medical community has delivered more than one vaccine for the novel coronavirus, and tens of millions of doses are being distributed around the globe. That means we could all be resuming our normal travel schedules soon. I’ve lost track of all the meetings I was supposed to attend in person last year that morphed into video conferences or were just outright canceled.

(from left) Steve Linscombe, Fred Zaunbrecher and Bruce Schultz chat during the 2019 Rice Outlook Conference Expo in Little Rock, Arkansas. Planning already is underway for the 2021 Rice Outlook Conference in New Orleans.

Among them were several USA Rice events — from the world market price meetings and our annual business meetings that went online to the Rice Millers’ Association Annual Convention and the USA Rice Outlook Conference that were both canceled for 2020.

All of this has made me realize how important the face-to-face interactions are and how easy it is to take little things like TWITTER: @RICEFARMING

New opportunities And, of course, we have work to do with the new Biden administration to ensure that our rice priorities are front and center as they take the reigns of leadership and start working on agricultural issues. We’ve been involved in many of these transitions and have already been talking with key members of the Biden team to ensure a smooth hand off later this month.

We also saw the first delivery of U.S. rice to China in 2020 and expect great things from this massive market in the year ahead.

Likewise, we saw very strong sales of U.S. rice in Korea, expect Iraq to use new financing to purchase our rice, and even sold a significant amount of rice to Brazil that was stretched thin by the pandemic and weather.

We are also hopeful that 2021 will see new trade agreements with the United Kingdom and Kenya that should benefit our rice sales in those two markets.

As I said, 2021 is shaping up nicely so far.

It’s early, but I’m confident she won’t let us down. Here’s to a great 2021 — I wish us all health, happiness and in-person gatherings!

JANUARY 2021

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Without sizable acreage decreases and demand increases, prices could soften for the 2021 crop

By Kurt Guidry

Looking to 2021 The question that remains is whether prices will continue to be supported as we move through the 2020-21 marketing year and into the 2021 production season. Currently, prices have been relatively stable around the $20-per-barrel ($12.35 hundredweight) level. However, examining the overall supply-and-demand picture reveals that ending stocks for the 2020-21 marketing year are projected to increase by 77% from the previous year for all rice and by more than 120% for long-grain rice.

With those types of increases projected in stock levels, historically the expectation would be for downward pressure on prices.

The market has been able to resist this downturn in prices, in part, due to demand.

Rice purchases to cover domestic demand along with relatively strong long-grain rough-rice exports have helped to prevent any significant downturn in prices to this point. Long-grain rough-rice exports are more than 12% higher than the previous year.

This has been mostly driven by Brazil, which has purchased more than 120,000 metric tons to this point in the marketing year versus none last year. With the increase in supplies and stocks, the market will need to continue to find new demand to support prices as it continues through the marketing year.

Unfortunately, where that new demand will come from is difficult to see. It appears that the purchases from Brazil may begin to slow significantly as there are no sales currently on the books.

While there have been some rumors of a potential sale to Iraq, it has yet to materialize.

Increased production and supplies by competing export countries have helped to bring down their export prices, which will likely make it difficult for U.S. rice to find additional market share. By most accounts, short-term needs for the domestic market have also likely been met at this time, reducing the urgency for domestic users to source supplies.

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JANUARY 2021

VICKY BOYD

T

ight stocks and favorable demand have helped support rice prices for much of 2020, which saw a large increase in rice acres and the potential for drastically higher production and supply levels. Historically, this type of situation would result in heavy downward pressure on prices.

While 2020 prices were lower than levels experienced in 2019, the price reduction was not nearly as significant as might have been projected. Weather concerns in key growing states likely helped to keep some risk premium in the market, and the increase in feed grain and oilseed prices has likely provided some spillover support to rice. But the biggest factor in helping to keep prices supported and relatively stable in 2020 were the tight stocks entering the harvest season.

Beginning stocks for the 2020-21 marketing season were the lowest since the 2003-04 marketing year. That, along with better-than-expected domestic and export demand, helped to support rice prices despite the more than 22% increase in total rice production.

Given current price levels, it is difficult to see a drastic reduction in total rice acres.

Holiday doldrums All of these factors, along with the normal downturn in activity associated with the holidays, has kept the market quiet over the past several weeks, and it will likely continue to remain so over the next several weeks. While higher feed grain and oilseed prices may provide some spillover support to rice prices, it will take some additional positive demand-side news to keep prices supported once the market starts to gear back up after the holidays.

What’s in store for 2021?

Looking to 2021 production shows a mixed bag of factors. On one hand, total domestic stock levels to start the 2021 production and harvest year will be significantly higher than the previous year. While not up as significantly, world stocks are also projected to be higher.

One thing that could help offset those larger stock levels would be lower acreage and lower overall production in 2021. Higher feed grain and soybean prices could help pull some acres away from rice.

However, given current price levels, it is difficult to see a drastic reduction in total rice acres. In its baseline projections released in November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated nearly a 400,000-acre reduction in rice acres for 2021, with most coming from long grain.

That large a decrease could offset the larger beginning stocks levels and keep prices around the $20-per-barrel range, assuming stable demand. As mentioned, it is difficult to see that large a decrease in acres. A reduction of only about 200,000 acres would put supply and stock levels that — without some type of increase in overall demand — would likely pressure prices down into the $18- to $19-per-barrel (low to high $11 cwt) range.

Dr. Kurt Guidry is Southwest Region director and Extension economist with the Louisiana State University AgCenter in Crowley.

He may be reached at KMGuidry@agcenter.lsu.edu RICEFARMING.COM

New Horizon Ag Clearfield® Varieties Fit Farmer Needs for Performance Bernie, Missouri, farmer Zack Tanner has seen a lot of positive developments in Horizon Ag Clearfield® rice varieties over the years, thanks to ongoing university breeding and industry efforts.

The latest rice variety releases available from Horizon Ag for the Clearfield Production System for rice, however, are particularly impressive with new varieties like CLL16, CLL17 and last year’s CLL15 pushing yield potential significantly higher while also offering advantages like increased blast resistance and high milling quality.

“I think this new generation of Clearfield varieties really lends itself to what farmers are looking for in the marketplace,” said Tanner. “The varieties provide very good, affordable options for higher-yielding rice. CLL16, for instance, has the potential to produce hybrid-type yields at a lower seed cost. And having increased blast resistance really helps them with farms west of the (Crowley’s) Ridge.”

CLL17, an early-season, semi-dwarf long grain rice developed at the LSU Ag Center H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station, also stood out in Tanner’s fields in 2020.

“CLL17 really grew off rapidly, had great vigor and grew to green ring stage faster than other varieties,” he said. “One thing that stands out is it is an efficient user of nitrogen. You might be tempted to apply more N because the plants have a lighter color, but a study showed its sweet spot was 90 total pounds of N. I would caution against using too much nitrogen because you are not going to get it to be dark green.”

Although the variety is likely to be more popular further south, “it pressed a lot of buttons for being an attractive plant,” he added.

Horizon Ag and LSU report that CLL17 has consistently out-yielded CL153, the top-planted Louisiana variety in recent years, in multi-year trials. It has solid ratoon crop potential and also features outstanding resistance to blast. In addition, it has proven to provide excellent milling yield and very good grain quality. Horizon Ag expects CLL17 to eventually become the leading Clearfield variety planted in Louisiana, surpassing CL153, based on its performance.

Horizon Ag variety CLL15 was released in 2020 and was planted on a broad acreage across the northern Delta. Tanner had the variety on his farm two years prior to launch and said that based on how it yielded those two seasons he recommended it to many farmers in the area.

Zack Tanner (right) with Jason Satterfield, Horizon Ag District Field Representative, inspecting field of CLL16, near Bernie, Missouri

Tanner, who also is president and co-owner of Tanner Seed Company, has had a chance to see the newest Horizon Ag Clearfield varieties up close in his seed production fields, taking note of their agronomic characteristics along with how to best manage them to get the most out of their higher performance potential.

“CLL16 is hands down my favorite Clearfield variety, ever,” said Tanner. “It had good vigor and tillered very well. It is a medium-season variety that made a very good yield, and the milling was great. We didn’t see any blast in it, it didn’t have any lodging and it does well at a low seeding rate.”

A long grain Clearfield rice variety developed by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, CLL16 has shown excellent rough rice yields, averaging higher than Diamond in university tests. Its performance consistency, high milling quality and industry-leading blast resistance make CLL16 the complete package for many rice farmers considering seed choices for planting next season.

“It has a great plant type, a shorter stature but not too tall or short,” he said. “It tillers extremely well, stands well and mills very well, and our yield two consecutive years was in the mid-190s (bushels per acre). What I really like about CLL15, in addition to its yield potential and blast resistance, is that all the crop was on top and the combine did not have to harvest a lot of material. I had been planting both CL151 and CL153, and we felt CLL15 was a great improvement over those varieties.”

Tanner added that another Horizon Ag variety released in 2020, Provisia® rice variety PVL02, is beginning to win a place on more acres in the region. PVL02, which was available in limited supply in its initial year, proved to be a significant step change over the first Provisia variety, PVL01, in terms of yield and overall performance. PVL02 will be the primary variety offered by Horizon Ag for the Provisia Rice System for 2021.

“We have more crop diversity and rotation options in this area, but you don’t have to go far to find where weedy rice and resistance are serious issues,” said Tanner. “The farmers who have planted Provisia rice here really like it. The difference in their Provisia fields and fields with weedy rice is like night and day. Provisia rice is another important tool for them.”

For more information, farmers can call 1-800-356-9033 or see their Horizon Ag Authorized Retailers.

Tanner said that his CLL16 conservatively cut 204 bushels per acre, dry, in 2020 without the levees being seeded. In 2019, Tanner’s CLL16 made over 240 dry bushels per acre.

“That consistency is really important to farmers,” he said. “It’s a typical Arkansas-plant type, which is a little taller in height, and it is absolutely a good fit in Missouri and Arkansas. We were very impressed with it.”

Clearfield® and Provisia® are registered trademarks of BASF. ©2021 Horizon Ag, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Passing down the passion SW Louisiana farm family continues and expands the conservation practices that previous generations started.

By Amy Robertson Fuselier

Early adopters of technology Using technology has been integral in the success of Simon Farms.

Glenn recalled, “Our operation has evolved since I started 42

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COURTESY GLENN SIMON

L

ocated in Louisiana’s Acadia and Vermilion parishes is Simon Farms, a multi-generational family farm known far and wide for their dedication to conservation. This close-knit family has a passion for soil health and a thirst for knowledge about ways to improve their agricultural production.

The Simon farming legacy began years ago with Glenn Simon’s grandfather and father who loved farming. In fact, Glenn recalls that his dad wanted to talk about farming all the time.

“Dad liked the land more than he did most people,” Glenn laughed. All joking aside, “My dad was very passionate about farming and the land; because of Dad’s hard work and perseverance, we have what we have today.”

Glenn is the first to say that he has taken what his dad started, spread his wings to grow “When we pass the the business, and now Glenn’s two sons (Lucas torch to the next and Wes) are working to generation, we want take the operation to the next level. a good flame and “But, we would not be not just a flicker, so where we are today without my dad,” Glenn said, the next farming smiling. generation will be Today Simon Farms able to succeed.” has grown to about 9,000 acres that includes 4,100 of rice, 3,100 of beans and 1,200 acres of crawfish with the balance of the land in pasture. With 70% of their land in Acadia Parish, the Simons have established a successful partnership with the Acadia Soil and Water Conservation District and the Natural Resources Conservation Service field office in Crowley.

“The technical and financial assistance that we’ve received from NRCS has helped us utilize technology in a way that conserves our natural resources,” Glenn said. Over the years, the Simons have worked closely with Kody Meaux, district conservationist in the Crowley field office.

“I really love working with the Simon family,” Meaux said.

“They are so interested in learning new information and improving their operation. I know I can share the latest articles about innovations in conservation and they will run with it!”

(from left) Wes, Glenn and Lucas Simon have adopted conservation practices on their Crowley, Louisiana, rice operation that benefit both their bottom line and the environment.

years ago after graduating from college. Changing with the times is so significant, I’ve observed over the years, those who are not willing to embrace change and adapt are no longer in business.

That shows you how critical technology has been and still is to our farming operation.”

Over the years, Simon Farms has used multiple programs with NRCS including the Environment Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Stewardship Program and conservation technical assistance. In addition, they’ve used the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act Section 319 Program offered through the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry’s Office of Soil and Water Conservation.

Precision land leveling, just one of the many conservation measures used, has made a huge difference by requiring less water to flood the fields. The Simons also have embraced grid soil samRICEFARMING.COM

The seat is low and on the side, you drive with your feet, so hands are free to grab the cages and put in bait. Wes added, “The airboats have helped us become more so much more efficient.

Now when crawfishing season is over, we don’t have to go in the fields and repair the soil; there is no disturbance so there is nothing to repair.”

pling, which allows them to create maps showing variations in soil type and nutrients. Initially, the information was used to write a variable-rate prescription for nitrogen. More recently, they’ve expanded to include variable-rate applications for potassium and potash, placing more of the nutrients where they’re needed and less where there already are sufficient levels. Although the practice is common in the Midwest, it is relatively rare in Southwest Louisiana, Meaux said.

The family applies all of its nitrogen preflood and pulls in-season tissue sampling to determine nutrient levels in their crops and whether they need a top-dressing.

“We are doing the best we can to produce more grain on the same acre with less water, less fertilizer and less diesel burned,” Wes Simon said. It is a whole-farm approach to conservation, conserving water and disturbing the soil as little as possible.

On the level A great deal of work was put into leveling the rice fields. When crawfish season rolled around and the traditional paddle boats created ruts in the newly leveled fields, Lucas — who oversees all the crawfish fields — knew something had to change. And it did.

The Simons started using airboats — not the run-of-the-mill kind, but a newly designed airboat. “We purchased the hull of the boat, then we retrofitted it for crawfishing,” Glenn said.

The Simons have converted airboats to use in their crawfish ponds because they don’t leave ruts that have to be repaired after the season ends. Here, Hayden, Glenn and Wes Simon fish for crawfish.

TWITTER: @RICEFARMING

PHOTOS BY AMY ROBERTSON FUSELIER, NRCS

(from left) Kody Meaux, NRCS district conservationist in the Crowley, Louisiana, field office, looks over a farm plan with Wes, Hayden and Glenn Simon.

Investing in soil health Glenn and Wes agreed that soil health is one of the most important aspects of farming and is key to the longevity and success of their farm. Their plans include working with NRCS and the Environmental Quality Incentive Program to incorporate cover crops along with the no-till practice they currently use.

The cover crop is planted in the summer after the crawfish ponds are drained for the season. But finding plant varieties that will grow well during Louisiana’s hot, humid summer is a challenge, Meaux said.

He said they believe they’ve found a few and plan to try a blend of about four species, such as sun hemp, cow peas and warm-season legumes, to see how they perform. The cover will be no-till drilled into the undisturbed field, much like previous cash crops have been.

Wes Simon (left) and son Hayden check rice plants for rice water weevil damage.

Some of the Simons’ fields have not seen a disk for four to five years, he said. “They’re pretty much shelving the disk,” Meaux said.

“We will continue to focus on conservation, making sure we are energy efficient, and using only the water we need for a successful crop and maximizing soil health,” Wes said.

“When we pass the torch to the next generation, we want a good flame and not just a flicker, so the next farming generation will be able to succeed,” Glenn said. “What my dad did for me I’m extremely grateful, and I know that my boys are grateful for what I’ve passed on to them, Now it’s our job to make sure we have put conservation measures in place that will ensure soil health for the generations that follow us.”

“We will be long gone one day, but this soil will still be here,” Wes said. “Hopefully, the work that we’ve done. And with the conservation measures we have put into place with the help of NRCS and the Acadia SWCD, the soil will continue to provide food for our family, state and nation.”

Amy Robertson Fuselier is state public affairs specialist for NRCS Louisiana. She may be reached at amy.robertson@usda.gov.

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Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta farmers express doubts on ‘carbon farming’

By Kevin Hecteman being studied to better understand any contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If proven, the conservancy’s goal is to present its nonregulatory protocol for adoption by the state Air Resources Board as a formal protocol for use in California’s existing cap-and-trade program.

“The big problem I see is that I don’t think the farming community has been engaged in this discussion,” said Osha Meserve, an attorney representing Delta landowners and reclamation districts.

Meserve took issue with one claim being made by the conservancy: that the Delta produces one-quarter of California’s agricultural carbon emissions.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is home to farming, recreation and fragile wetlands. A plan to convert nearly 200,000 acres to rice production or tule farming has raised the ire of farming representatives.

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VICKY BOYD

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lans to convert nearly 200,000 acres of California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta farmland into rice production or tule-based carbon farms are being greeted with skepticism among representatives of Delta farmers.

The Delta Conservancy, a state agency, has partnered with environmental organizations and universities on pilot projects aimed at stopping or slowing ongoing land subsidence in the Delta under a California Wetland Protocol. The protocol, currently certified through the nonregulatory American Carbon Registry, is being used to quantify carbon sequestration from growing tules or rice on seasonally or perennially wetted lands in the Delta.

A few thousand acres of experimental rice in the Delta are

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“I have a big concern that the math that the conservancy is using is based on some really limited data, and it’s overstating the contribution of Delta agriculture in particular to carbon emissions,” she said.

U.S. GEOLOGIC SURVEY

Little value Bruce Blodgett, executive director of the San Joaquin Farm Bureau Federation, objects to the idea of converting so much Delta land to rice and tules.

“There’s no value to anyone other than the individual landowner. … That’s not what’s best for the community, and more importantly, that’s not what’s best for the region,” Blodgett said.

Meserve echoed this, noting that “growing tules, even if you could get paid for it, doesn’t create any other jobs.”

Blodgett doesn’t so much take issue with rice planting as he does with the idea of paying people to do it — especially when other rice farmers, in San Joaquin County and elsewhere, are paying their own way.

“Rice production has long been a part of the Delta,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have to subsidize it, or it doesn’t make sense.”

Blodgett pointed out that the Delta is protected under state law, the Delta Protection Act of 1992, aimed at ensuring the region doesn’t disappear under a lake of asphalt.

“This area is preserved for agricultural production,” he said.

“You can’t build subdivisions in the Delta in the primary zone.

You can’t go in and reinforce levees in the middle of the Delta and say, ‘We’re going to build a new community out here, and it’s going to be all houses and shopping malls.’”

Melinda Terry, executive director of the California Central Valley Flood Control Association, said the Delta Protection Act came about because the state did not want to see Delta agricultural land developed.

“In this case,” she said, “the conversion will still take place. It won’t be development, but it would be wetlands.”

This is where communication is key, she noted.

“The program relies on landowners volunteering to convert their land,” Terry said. “If this program is dependent on that, then you need to go meet with them now to get buy-in, that this is something they’re interested in beyond just the couple of landowners that they do have currently participating in pilot programs.”

VICKY BOYD

Tules have their own baggage One challenge that has arisen, Meserve said, is that tules have their own greenhouse-gas issues.

“There’s a lot of methane emissions that come in when you grow tules,” she said. “We don’t think that the calculations that the conservancy has been using really take that into account.”

The Nature Conservancy, which owns Staten Island, is conducting a study measuring methane coming from the tule fields it’s planting, Meserve said.

“That will be really important information, because before we push farmers into changing crops to tules or some other crop, we need to make sure we’re not creating some other issue,” she said.

Blodgett said the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers makes the Delta region ideal for farming.

“A lot of the water that flows through the state flows through the Delta,” he said. “That was why it was developed for agriculture, and that’s why the state Legislature protected it for agriculture.”

Meserve pointed out the wide array of crops grown in the Delta — more than two dozen, according to a 2016 LandIQ map of the region.

“That’s one of the cool things about the Delta, is that there’s this whole variety of crops,” she said. “Some of that is making its way to the local markets and restaurants. It’s kind of the richness of our region. I think that’s another concern I would have with converting a lot to this carbon-market type farming, is that you would lose some of the benefits of having those crops coming out of the Delta.”

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Kevin Hecteman is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. This article originally appeared in Ag Alert, the weekly newspaper of the California Farm Bureau Federation.

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Up, up and away Drone technology moves to next level, measuring field elevation for cut sheets, levee placement and MIRI calculations.

By Vicky Boyd Editor

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cott Matthews, who farms in Northeast Arkansas, likes to describe his continued quest for improving water-use efficiency and yields as “conservation irrigation.”

“Where you’re standing right here is a critical groundwater area, and when I say that, I capitalize ‘critical groundwater area,’” said Matthews, who is farming ground near Weiner that’s been in the family for 115 years. “We don’t just conserve irrigation because we want to – we conserve irrigation because we need to and it’s very, very, very important.”

He has already precision graded all but one of his rice fields for better water-use uniformity. Matthews also uses multiple-inlet rice irrigation, coupled with the University of Arkansas’ hole-selection

app, throughout his farm. MIRI — which uses collapsible poly tubing to deliver water simultaneously to each paddy — saves an average of 20% to 25% water compared to regular flood.

It also improves the efficiency of fertilizer and herbicide, resulting in more uniform crop growth and maturity. In addition, it reduces the cold water effect in the first levee.

With most of the low-hanging fruit already picked, Matthews has stepped up his conservation efforts by enlisting unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, technology to move to the next level.

Mike Hamilton, University of Arkansas irrigation instructor, is a drone convert and now uses them to help growers determine growers determine exact field and paddy sizes as part of helping

COURTESY RICHARD PICKETT

A fixed-wing drone is more expensive to buy than a rotary drone, but it can cover three times the area in the same time.

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From the elevation map to the left, Richard Pickett is able to develop a cut map and earth works details.

them set up MIRI in a field. With as little as 20 minutes flight time, he can gather the needed data.

As the drone flies, a mounted camera takes a series of images that have to be stitched together afterward to create an entire field map. And it’s this post-flight processing that takes significantly more time than the actual flight.

Fortunately, Hamilton said, he can set up a computer to process the images without human supervision.

The results are a map that accurately notates the overall field area as well as the area of each paddy and levee. Hamilton then plugs the area measurements as well as pump flow, run length and field slope into the University of Arkansas’ Rice Irrigation App or Delta Plastics’ Pipe Planner software program.

The software determines the poly tubing diameter and amount needed as well as the amount of water and adjustable gates needed for each paddy to flood simultaneously.

“So I can set that up on the front end to be closer and more accurate,” Hamilton said. “You still have to adjust the blue gates, but it’s much less adjustment if you have it set up right the first time.

And once you get everything set up properly your don’t have to adjust anything the rest of the season.”

Those same precise GPS acreage figures can also be used to calculate the amount of seed needed at planting and yields at harvest.

Elevating uses Matthews, who worked with Hamilton to install MIRI across his farm, has turned to Richard Pickett of P&P Consulting in Forrest City, Arkansas, to more precisely measure his fields.

Pickett flies two types of drones. A rotary drone covers an area at a slower speed but is less expensive to purchase and quicker to set up.

A fixed-wing drone, on the other hand, is costlier to purchase and takes longer to set up but can cover three times the area of a rotary unit.

Pickett also has the option of two types of GPS. Regular GPS, which has 2- to 10-meter accuracy, is used for tasks such as measuring field size.

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Earth works details Total area . ..................................................................... 40.273 ac Total cut area ................................................................ 20.321 ac Total fill area .................................................................. 19.952 ac Max cut .............................................................................. 2.526 ft Max fill ................................................................................. 1.692 ft Total cut volume ............................... 31,318 yd3 (777.6 yd3/ac) Total fill volume .............................. 26,098 yd3 (648.0 yd3/ac) Import/Export ............................................................. -5,220 yd3 Actual cut/fill ratio . ................................................................ 1.20

Surface compare Elevation surface mean ................................................ 128.35 ft New surface mean ......................................................... 128.27 ft New surface % area higher than original ....................... 49.54 New surface % vol. diff. higher than original ................ 45.45

Plane setup Maximum slope ................................................................ 0.100% Direction of maximum slope ........................ 90.00deg. (East)

Recently Pickett has started offering drone GPS surveys that can be used to produce elevation maps showing differences within a field. For this, he uses a drone equipped with GPS coupled with real-time kinematic, or RTK, correction. The results are accurate to less than an inch.

Last fall, Matthews had Pickett fly a few of his fields for elevation and to survey for levee and ditch placement this spring.

Using specialized software, Pickett created maps and prescriptions that can then be loaded into a tractor pulling a ditcher or levee-building equipment to precisely guide them across the field. Those same GPS coordinates will remain applicable until Matthews relevels his fields.

As a result, Matthews said he is already one step ahead and won’t have to wait for dry conditions this spring to have someone mark the levees and ditches.

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A soybean field surveyed for levees with a 0.35 drop and ditches.

COURTESY RICHARD PICKETT

The same field mapped for rice and levees with a 0.2 drop and the same ditches. The jaggedness of the levees, which will be smoothed before the map is used, is caused by dirt clods or other minute rises in the landscape.

elevation must either be smoothed and ready for planting or at least have the stubble mowed closely to the ground, Pickett said.

Large dirt clods, ruts or tall plant material will interfere with the cameras and distort the results.

Fortunately, Matthews said, he was able to get some fields prepared after the 2020 harvest, unlike the previous few falls, which were marked by abnormally wet conditions and rutted fields.

“You have to have smooth ground,” he said. “The last three to four years, we had trouble with wet harvests, and we had trouble getting rid of the stubble. All of those things can work against you.”

In one of his rice fields, Matthews also had a spot that produced lower yields according to his yield maps.

By overlaying Pickett’s elevation map with the yield map, Matthews found the spot was only a fraction of a tenth higher than the rest of the field.

But that inch or so meant the spot dried out quicker, stressing the rice and reducing yields.

Elevation also is one of the variables entered into computerized hole-selection software for furrow irrigation.

If the grower plants to run the tubing down one side of the field, Pickett said he only needs to fly that area to measure the elevation.

But if the grower plans to run the piping down the middle, he’ll fly the entire field to determine the center of the ridge where it should be placed.

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A land-leveling tool Pickett, who has used drones with GPS RTK to survey fields and develop cut maps for land leveling, said he believed that’s a market with strong potential.

Matthews agreed, saying he was impressed by the cut maps’ precision and usefulness.

“And it’s so much more accurate,” he said. “A truck drives your field on a cut sheet and a lot are driving 100-foot swaths, some are driving 50 feet. That drone can actually fly foot swaths.”

Elevation data and resulting cut maps also can be used to determine whether it is more cost effective to level a field intended for crops other than rice or install a center-pivot irrigation system, Pickett said.

The next 1% But for Matthews, the technology is all about helping him move closer to his goals.

“I’m looking to get 1% better,” he said. “If I get 1% better, that will lead me to the next 1%, and that will lead me to the next 1%.

That’s how close we are. For me, it’s achieving better irrigation efficiency in a critical groundwater area. I know it’s a lot of work and a lot of technology. But any time we can improve by just a percent or two, it’s going to make a difference in our costs and our yields.”

RICEFARMING.COM

PEYTON CROAKER

Close-up of selected whole milled grains of Presidio (left) and Trinity (right) rice varieties.

Honoring the Trinity River New Texas long-grain release offers stronger yield potential than Presidio.

By Vicky Boyd Editor

T

exas A&M AgriLife Research is releasing Trinity, a new conventional long-grain rice variety with better first- and second-crop yield potential than Presidio — a previous Texas release that’s the most widely grown inbred in the state.

Formerly known as RU1603178, Trinity was developed by Drs. Rodante Tabien, Omar Samonte and Ted Wilson; research associate Chersty Harper; and Dr. Xin-Gen “Shane” Zhou, with funding from the Texas Rice Research Foundation, the Lower Colorado River Authority and Texas A&M AgriLife Research.

The variety’s name pays homage to the Trinity River in Texas.

It is expected to be available for seed production in 2021 and for commercial planting in 2022, said Wilson, director of the AgriLife Beaumont Research Center.

“Overall with the main and the ratoon, it averages about 13% more yield potential, so it’s a good variety compared to Presidio,” Samonte said. “It doesn’t lodge. It heads four days later (than Presidio), is a bit taller, and the quality is good.”

In the pipeline are at least three additional elite rice lines with comparable grain quality to Presidio but even higher yield potentials, Wilson said.

Strong parentage Trinity has parentage from Cocodrie, a Louisiana State University AgCenter semi-dwarf release; Saber, a Texas semi-dwarf variety; and Presidio. The initial cross was made in 2006.

Yield data has shown Trinity has a 12% main crop yield advantage and a 13% combined main and ratoon crop yield advantage over Presidio, which is known for good ratoon yield potential.

In trials, Trinity averaged 12,062 pounds combined main and TWITTER: @RICEFARMING

second crop per acre compared to 10,692 pounds combined per acre for Presidio.

Trinity stands about 37.4 inches, or about 2 inches taller than Presidio. Nevertheless, the new release has good standability, and Samonte said it typically doesn’t lodge.

Trinity reaches 50% heading four days later than Presidio and matures about seven days later than the established variety. Both head and total milled rice are comparable to Presidio, as is grain quality.

Kernels of Trinity average 6.6 millimeters, only minimally shorter than Presidio but still well within the acceptable range for Southern long-grain varieties. It has intermediate amylose content.

Trinity samples from a 2019 large-plot trial grown by the Texas Rice Improvement Association averaged 0.7% chalky grain, a highly desirable level. The result is a transparent kernel that makes for an attractive packaged product.

Production recommendations in the works If Trinity has a downside, it’s the lack of blast-resistance genes, Samonte said. But AgriLife breeders are working on that for future releases.

All of the current varieties in development are grown under standardized fertility and fungicide programs. Samonte will be working with Zhou and Dr. Fugen Dou in 2021 to fine-tune those and develop commercial production recommendations for disease and nitrogen management.

“That’s what the farmers will be asking,” Samonte said.

“What’s the disease package? What’s the fertility package? And what are your recommendations?”

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A look back, a look forward LSU AgCenter leaders spotlight research work, state rice industry outlook during virtual presentation.

By Bruce Schultz

Year in review Groth also reviewed the work of researchers at the rice station.  AgCenter weed scientist Eric Webster is studying herbicide timing and rates and aggressive methods of weedy rice control.  AgCenter rice breeder Adam Famoso has two conventional long-grain lines with high yield potential, good quality and disease resistance. He said they could be released next year. The new Provisia rice variety, PVL03, is an improvement over the previous two versions, and a new Clearfield variety, CLL17, will replace CL153.  AgCenter geneticist Brijesh Angira will handle medium-grain rice breeding. Angira has used his expertise to identify genetic markers for disease, plant height and other simply inherited traits.  Much of Dustin Harrell’s work in agronomy has focused on nitrogen rate, timing and source; planting rates; and other agronomic practices for varieties and hybrids.  AgCenter hybrid rice breeder Jim Oard has several new promising candidates being evaluated. The challenge in hybrid breeding is producing an adequate amount of seed economically.  AgCenter molecular biologist Herry Utomo is evaluating the genetic traits involved in yield and quality. His other work includes studying digestibility of rice to make it more acceptable to people with diabetes and improving coastal marsh plants.  AgCenter entomologist Blake Wilson has included seed treatments, along with insecticide timing and rates, in his research.

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wo Louisiana State University AgCenter rice experts gave their perspectives on the past growing season in the state during a recent online presentation for the 2020 USA Rice Outlook Conference.

Don Groth, resident coordinator of the AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station at Crowley, discussed his disease work and the work of other scientists at the station. He said the station’s research projects were affected by tropical weather; research plots in Jefferson Davis Parish were devastated.

“After Hurricane Laura came through, it looked like someone came through with a stripper header,” Groth said.

His work in 2020 included a fungicide study for smuts that were a major problem in 2019, and it showed using propiconazole and Amistar Top could be 95% effective against smuts.

Much of the station’s work involves testing new products, and many are found to be ineffective. But the research is beneficial for advising farmers what they shouldn’t use on their crops.

The AgCenter prefers three years of data before making a recommendation. Groth said one of the big changes he has noticed in his 37-year career is the reduction of very susceptible and susceptible disease breeding materials.

Hurricane Delta’s strong winds caused kernels nearing maturity to shatter, creating damage that looked like a stripper-header had gone through the field.

Groth will retire at the end of January, and Harrell has been selected as the station’s new resident coordinator. A nationwide search is underway for his replacement as rice pathologist. Ronnie Levy, formerly director of the Louisiana Master Farmer Program, became the AgCenter rice Extension specialist.

A look back, a look forward Levy also addressed the conference and said he expects Louisiana rice acreage to increase by 15,000 to 20,000 acres in 2021.

The state’s rice acreage totaled almost 476,000 in 2020.

The amount of row rice grown in north Louisiana totaled 35,000 acres in 2020. In 2017, North Louisiana farmers planted 2,500 acres with that technique. The practice gives farmers more flexibility without modifying their fields, Levy said. But they have to learn how to deal with different weeds and insects along with an increased chance of blast disease.

The 2020 season started with good weather that allowed South Louisiana farmers to plant 75% of their fields in the first two weeks of March. Heavy rains delayed planting in North Louisiana.

Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana in August after most of the rice in Southwest Louisiana was harvested, but much of the farming infrastructure in that part of the state was damaged. Laura moved to North Louisiana as a Category 1 hurricane that damaged a large portion of the crop.

The 2020 second crop harvest in South Louisiana decreased by 24% this year because of Hurricane Delta in October. Overall average yield in Louisiana was 7,135 pounds per acre, Levy said.

Bruce Schultz is assistant communications specialist at the LSU AgCenter. He may be reached at BSchultz@agcenter.lsu.edu.

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Rollercoaster ride Arkansas’ 2020 season had its ups and downs but finished on a profitable note.

By Ryan McGeeney

Storm warning As with most agricultural efforts, Arkansas rice was affected by the record number of hurricanes and other storm systems that rolled through the Gulf of Mexico in 2020, often pushing wind and rain into the Southern Plains region and beyond.

“From Cristobal in early June, which actually left us fairly dry for six to eight weeks after it departed, to the stack of hurricanes in the fall, tropical storms are the story of the year,” Hardke said.

“Lodging and milling were on everyone’s mind for the entire fall.”

In the end, lodging took a relatively minor toll on the Arkansas rice crop. Mild weather in the fall allowed grain to dry slowly.

That made for a slow harvest, he said, but also made for generally favorable milling yields.

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COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

I

t almost goes without saying that 2020 will be a year to remember — even if many across the country may already be dreaming up ways to forget it.

For Arkansas rice growers, the year proved to carry burdens both familiar and novel. Throughout the late winter and early spring, wet weather across much of the Southern Plains prevented almost all early planting in Arkansas rice. As March rolled into April, the COVID-19 pandemic began complicating agricultural practices both on and off the farm.

Jarrod Hardke, Extension rice agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said 2020 had originally given rice growers cause for optimism.

“The year was set up to make a major move up in rice acres,” Hardke said. “Rice prices were good, while soybean and corn prices were low. Also, our rice stocks situation was very tight due to low production acreage in 2019.

“My expectation was that we would see at least 1.5 million acres,” he said, adding that a record acreage of 1.8 million acres didn’t seem out of the question early in the year.

But persistent rainfall throughout the planting season pushed those high acreage goals off the table. Ultimately, Arkansas growers harvested about 1.44 million acres of rice in 2020.

“Persistent wet weather was easily our biggest planting season issue,” Hardke said. “Rainfall event totals were often lower than those in 2019, but it rained more often in 2020. It seemed like we had planting windows of only two to three days at a time. Wide windows just didn’t present themselves to make a large run.”

Temperatures also played a role, with one of the colder Aprils on record, requiring longer drying times after rainfalls. The summer that followed was relatively mild, which in turn slowed the growing process.

“Sometimes that was a good thing, making some management easier,” he said. “But it delayed harvest.”

Throughout the late winter and early spring, wet weather across much of the Southern Plains prevented almost all early planting of Arkansas rice, including these field trials.

Profitable in the end In spite of the year’s uphill battle, the 2020 crop actually proved profitable for Arkansas rice growers as a whole.

“Rice prices have held up to make 2020 a profitable year for growers,” Hardke said. Although some economists initially predicted that prices would continue to rise with the approach of winter, prices have actually remained static throughout December.

He said Arkansas rice acreage in 2021 will likely decline from 2020 numbers if market prices remain strong for other commodities.

“Soybean and corn prices have now surged into strong competition with rice acres for 2021,” Hardke said. “Rice acres at this point can be expected to decline slightly, but if those competing commodities remain strong or strengthen in price, then it will push rice further down. Right now, a 5% to 10% decline in rice acres is my expectation. Should soybean prices climb higher, then rice acreage will decline further.”

Row rice, the practice of growing rice using furrow irrigation rather than submerging the plants in a controlled flood, continued to see increased interest — and acreage — from Arkansas growers in 2020, with an estimated 200,000 acres planted with the method statewide.

“Results were variable as growers continue to learn and adapt to the practice,” Hardke said. “However, once again results were positive overall. So as a percentage of production, it seems likely to continue to increase in 2021.”

Ryan McGeeney is a communications specialist with the University of Arkansas. He may be reached at rmcgeeney@uaex.edu.

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UC names Rice Yield Contest top yielders

Three California rice producers have been named top yielders in their respective production regions in the 2020 University of California Rice Yield Contest.

Their names will now be put in a drawing for a chance to win a John Deere Gator, said Bruce Linquist, UC Cooperative Extension rice specialist. The recipient will be named during the UC Cooperative Extension winter rice grower meetings in early 2021.

Each regional top yielder also will receive a coveted California Rice Yield Contest winner’s cap.  Region 1 (NW): Gary Enos, 111.4 hundredweight (248 bushels per acre) with M-209 medium grain.  Region 2 (NE): Eric Sligar, 127.9 cwt (285 bushels) with M-211 medium grain.  Region 3 (S): Greg Driver, 123.5 cwt (275 bushels) with M-209.

Compare those yields to what Linquist expects as a state average for 2020: 85 cwt per acre from about 513,000 acres.

The information derived from the short questionnaire entrants complete sheds light on seeding rates, planting dates, fertility, weed programs and rotations that help maximize yield potential.

“We learn a lot from these yield contests,” Linquist said during a recent online California Rice Outlook presentation. “They are very useful for helping us with our programs on how to get the high yields that we all like to see.”

The state is divided into three production regions to minimize environmental variations that could affect yield.  Region 1: West of Sacramento River and north of Highway 20.  Region 2: East of Sacramento River and north of Highway 20.  Region 3: South of Highway 20.

This year, the Gator was sponsored by BASF, Corteva, FMC, Syngenta, UPL, Valent U.S.A., Valley Truck & Tractor and Wilbur Ellis.

UArk’s Rick Cartwright among 6 inducted into Arkansas Ag Hall of Fame

The Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame plans to induct six individuals in 2021 due to their leadership and service to the state’s largest business sector.

The newest class represents agriculture education, the seed industry, agri-business, row-crop production, agricultural/political advocacy, timber management, plus agricultural research and outreach.

The newest inductees are:

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News  Retired Cooperative Extension Service director Rick Cartwright of Fayetteville. Prior to becoming Extension director, Cartwright was a plant pathologist focusing on rice diseases.  Long-time ag educator Joe Don Greenwood of Hermitage.  The late Russell Roy Reynolds, director Rick of the U.S. Forest Service Crossett Experimen- Cartwright tal Forest for 34 years.  Former Arkansas Farm Bureau President Randy Veach of Manila.  Mark Waldrip of Moro, founder of Armor Seed Co.  Andrew Wargo III of Watson, farm manager for the 15,000acre Baxter Land Co. for more than 50 years.

Induction ceremonies for Class XXXIV have not been set. The Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame board of directors has decided to forego the traditional timeframe of early March and is working to secure a date for mid-summer.

The new selections will bring to 176 the number of honorees in the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame, begun in 1987.

Valent launches new seed treatment

Valent U.S.A. has launched the Zeltera Rice System seed treatment package for the 2021 season.

The system builds on the company’s existing NipsIt Suite with the addition of the Indiflin fungicide, the brand name for the active ingredient, inpyrfluxam.

An SDHI, it helps control Rhizoctonia solani, said Valent field market development specialist Mallory Everett. That pathogen is responsible for damping off, seedling blight and seed decay.

“We’re really excited about it because the Indiflin is from a different FRAC group – it’s an SDHI,” Everett said. “With strobilurin-resistant Rhizoctonia in Louisiana, this works really well because it’s a different mode of action.”

SDHIs belong to the Fungicide Resistance Action Committee’s Group 7 whereas strobilurins belong to Group 11.

In addition, the Zeltera system includes clothianidin insecticide, and metalalaxyl and metconazole fungicides – which are all part of NipsIt Suite. The Zeltera system, however, contains a higher rate of metalaxyl than NipsIt Suite.

The Zeltera system will be available through retailers, who will apply the treatment upon request to rice seed.

USDA-ARS researcher receives 2020 Rice Sustainability Award

Dr. Michele Reba, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, is the 2020 recipient of the USA Rice Sustainability Award. She was chosen for her leadership and innovative research around sustainable rice production.

Her specialties in civil engineering and hydrology make her unique in the rice research world. But what truly sets Reba apart is her ability to bring together university professors, ARS researchers, crop consultants and farmers to work on some of the most difficult research questions around water use in rice.

Her research, nearly all of which is conducted on farm in collaboration with producers, includes irrigation conservation, irriRICEFARMING.COM

Industry

following a battle with cancer. He was 63. He is survived by his wife, Patty, sons Justin and Ryan, and preceded in death by his son, Matthew.

A native of Scranton in Logan County, Arkansas, Siebenmorgen earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas, his master’s degree from Purdue and a doctorate from the University of Nebraska, all in agricultural engineering. He began his faculty career with the University of Arkansas System in 1984 as a food engineer, working in several areas of food processing.

Starting in the late 1980s, Siebenmorgen focused on rice processing and in 1994 founded the world-renowned Rice Processing Program. It was an industry-interactive, multidisciplinary effort focusing on rice processing operations and with sponsors from across the United States, South America, Europe and Japan.

In 2019, Siebenmorgen was inducted into Class XXXII of the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame. He was also inducted as a Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers in 2005 and the American Association of Cereal Chemists International in 2014.

Siebenmorgen earned several industry awards, including Riceland Foods’ Friend of the Farmer in 2012 and the Distinguished Service Award from the Rice Technical Working Group in 2016 and 2018. He also received the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers Distinguished Food Engineer Award in 2007.

gation automation, rice straw management, edge-of-field monitoring of water quality and greenhouse gas emissions, and artificial recharge of the alluvial aquifer.

Reba leads the Delta Water Management Research Unit located on campus at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

The unit’s mission is to conduct research related to agricultural water resources management at the plot, field, farm and watershed scales to further the knowledge base, evaluate technological solutions and inform crop production practices.

LSU AgCenter announces leadership changes

Dustin Harrell became the resident coordinator of the Louisiana State University AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station Feb. 1, replacing Don Groth, who retired at the end of January.

Mike Salassi, AgCenter program leader for plant and animal sciences, made the announcement during a recent Louisiana Rice Research Board meeting.

Harrell will continue his agronomy research, but he will no longer be the rice Extension speDr. Ronnie cialist. Salassi announced that job will be taken Levy over by Ronnie Levy, currently the Louisiana Master Farmer Program coordinator and previously the soybean Extension specialist.

Salassi also said the Master Farmer coordinator position will be filled by Donna Gentry, who has worked with the program since it began.

Harrell has worked at the Rice Research Station since 2006 as a research agronomist. He became the rice specialist in 2015 when Johnny Saichuk retired.

Harrell has a bachelor’s degree in agriculture science from Texas A&M University, a master’s degree in soil science from Stephen F. Austin State University and a doctorate in agronomy from LSU. Groth started working at the station in 1983 as a plant pathologist. He replaced Steve Linscombe, who retired in 2017, as resident coordinator.

2020 National Rice Month Scholarship Video Contest sets records

Terry Siebenmorgen leaves global legacy in rice industry innovation

TWITTER: @RICEFARMING

MARY HIGHTOWER, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

Terry Siebenmorgen was known around the globe for his work in rice processing. But closer to home, he was treasured by co-workers and friends alike for his optimism, unflinching support and kindness. Siebenmorgen passed away in early December

Terry Siebenmorgen accepts induction into the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame in 2019.

News

Before the panel of judges watched the first video in this year’s National Rice Month Scholarship Video Contest, the 2020 entries made an impression just by their sheer number — a record-breaking 107.

“Since 2016, when the contest went solely to video and opened up to all high school seniors from one of the six major rice-producing states, the most entries received was 86,” said Michael Klein, USA Rice vice president of communications, marketing and domestic promotion. “With most schools going to virtual learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were concerned online video burnout could put a damper on entries. We even wondered whether a lot of kids would be deferring college due to COVID and take a year off from applying for scholarships.”

Obviously, that was not the case. With a new sponsor, American Commodity Co., and an increase in scholarship prize money, the entries came pouring in.

The grand prize winner was Molly Ellis from McKinney Boyd High School in McKinney, Texas, for her documentary-style video about the role rice played in the development of Katy, Texas.

She received a $5,000 scholarship.

The $3,000 second prize went to Simon Portillo Perez from Lawndale, California, and the third prize award of $2,000 went to another Texas student, Aniya Misher Allison from El Paso.

USA Rice also awarded three $500 honorable mention prizes to Kayllen Barnette from Gridley, California; Jordan Mackie from Austin, Texas; and Anna Overton from Pantego, Texas.

View the six winning videos at https://www.reelricecontest. com/winners/.

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Specialists

Speaking

DR. DUSTIN HARRELL, LSU AGCENTER

Varietal choices, new varieties and certified seed DR. BRUCE LINQUIST CALIFORNIA UCCE Rice Specialist balinquist@ucdavis.edu

In California, most farmers grow medium-grain varieties. The commercially available medium Calrose rice varieties meet the high quality and yield standards for California. Varietal selection is one of the first and most important decisions a rice grower will need to make each year.

In making a decision, first consider the maturity class that fits into your farming operations and climatic zone. There are three maturity classes: very early (e.g. M-105), early (e.g. M-206, M-209, M-210 and M-211) and late-maturing (e.g. M-401, M-402 – both premium medium grains).

Second, think about your climate: both M-105 and M-206 are considered broadly adapted varieties that will do well in most California rice-growing areas. However, in the coolest areas of the region, M-105 outyields M-206.

M-210 is a new variety with broad resistance to blast. It was developed from a DNA marker-assisted backcrossing program and is essentially M-206 with additional blast resistance.

It is designed for those areas in California that have had issues with rice blast, replacing M-208. In our statewide variety trials, M-206 and M-210 have similar heading dates and yield.

Another new variety that will be available this year is M-211, which has a similar heading time as M-209. This variety has a higher yield potential than all of the other varieties.

In the northern part of the valley where it is warmer, over the four sites in the variety trial and across five years, M-211 has yielded higher than all of the other varieties by an average of 4 hundredweights per acre. In our yield contest this year, the highest yield (128 cwt per acre) came from an M-211 field in Butte county.

It seems to have a slightly broader adaptability range than M-209 and can be grown in slightly cooler areas of the valley than M-209; however, it does not do well in the coolest portions of the valley. Furthermore, M-211 has exceptionally high quality and is comparable to M-401 in some aspects.

In terms of kernel smut, preliminary results suggest it is similar to M-206 and better than M-209. The primary concern with M-211 is milling quality. This variety needs to be harvested between 20% and 22% grain moisture. When it dries below that, milling quality drops fast.

Due to weedy rice concerns, effective in 2019, the California Rice Certification Act requires that all rice produced in the state come from seed enrolled in an approved certified seed program or a quality assurance program. These steps were taken to ensure that fields are planted with seed that has been screened for the presence of weedy rice types. Handlers will be requiring proof that rice delivered to their mills has been grown with seed that met these requirements.

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LSU AgCenter researchers conduct V-by-N trials to determine optimum nitrogen requirements for new varieties. The one pictured here involved CLL17.

Big changes to Louisiana rice cultivars on tap for 2021 DR. DUSTIN HARRELL

LOUISIANA LSU AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station dharrell@agcenter.lsu.edu There are a handful of new rice varieties and hybrids available in 2021 that will change the landscape of the rice grown in Louisiana. There are also a few rice varieties and hybrids that will virtually disappear in the coming season. I will do my best to cover the biggest variety and hybrid changes for 2021 in each rice class below.

Conventional long-grain rice variety offerings for 2021 will still have its two cornerstones: Cheniere and Mermentau. These two varieties made up 17% of the total acres in Louisiana in 2020 and over 98% of the Louisiana acres in the conventional long-grain (non-hybrid) class. Both varieties have good to excellent grain quality, milling and yield potential. Both are early maturing and have a good ratoon potential. Cheniere is moderately susceptible to blast while Mermentau is susceptible.

There will be a new conventional long-grain inbred variety from the Nutrien breeding program in 2021. The DynaGro variety will be called DG263L. It has shown a tremendous yield potential in early testing. It was the top yielding non-hybrid variety when averaged across all locations in Dr. Adam Famoso’s variety trials in 2020.

In fact, the mean yield of DG263L was less than a bushel lower than that of the hybrid CLXL745. The variety does not contain the Pita gene, but it has shown good blast resistance in limited testing. It is moderately resistant to bacterial panicle blight and susceptible to sheath blight. Milling was lower for DG263L than Cheniere and Mermentau in limited LSU testing.

Available Clearfield long grains for 2021 will once again include the high-quality CL111 and high-yielding CL151 varieties that we are all familiar with. CL153 was grown on 19.5% of the total acres in Louisiana in 2020; however, it will not be available on a widespread basis in 2021.

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Replacing CL153 will be CLL17, which was developed by the LSU rice breeding program. CLL17 is a couple days earlier in maturity and a couple inches taller than CL153. It has shown a good yield potential and also contains the Pita gene for good blast resistance. The variety is moderately susceptible to lodging.

The nitrogen fertilizer recommendation for CLL17 is between 90 and 130 pounds of N per acre, similar to the N fertilizer programs recommended for CL151 and Jupiter. CLL15 and CLL16 are two other Clearfield long-grain varieties developed by the Arkansas rice breeding program that have also shown good yield potential.

The Provisia long-grain variety PVL02 will once again be available in 2021. PVL02 has shown an improved yield potential and disease package over the initial Provisia variety release PVL01. PVL02 matures 11 days earlier than PVL01.

Ratoon yields from the 2020 cropping season indicated the variety has a very good yield potential, something that PVL01 lacked.

PVL02 is moderately susceptible to blast and sheath blight.

PVL03, a new Provisia long-grain variety developed by the LSU rice breeding program, will be available on a very limited basis in 2021. The new Provisia variety will have greatly improved blast resistance due to the inclusion of the Pita gene. It will also have improved yield potential.

Grain length will be longer than that of PVL02 but shorter than PVL01. The variety has shown good milling and grain quality in testing. PVL01 will not be available in 2021.

RiceTec will offer non-herbicide tolerant hybrids XP753, RT 7301, RT 7401 and RT 7501 for the 2021 season in Louisiana.

If you are looking for IMI resistance, the FullPage line-up will include RT7321 FP and RT7521 FP. These hybrids have a yield potential advantage over the non-hybrid lines and have very good resistance to blast. The blast resistance makes rice hybrids well suited for furrow-irrigated rice, which is increasing in acreage in Louisiana at a rapid pace.

Medium-grain rice varieties will once again include the non-herbicide-tolerant varieties Jupiter and Titan, which made up the bulk of the medium-grain acres in Louisiana in 2020. CLM04 will be the only Clearfield medium-grain variety in 2021. All three varieties have good yield potential. CLM04 and Jupiter are both susceptible to blast while Titan is moderately susceptible.

Varieties susceptible to blast should be avoided in a furrow-irrigated rice production system.

The adage, ‘early in, early out,’ holds true for Texas DR. M.O. “MO” WAY

TEXAS Rice Research Entomologist moway@aesrg.tamu.edu Clearly, varietal selection is key to producing a high-yielding, high-quality crop.

It has been pretty dry this fall in the Texas Rice Belt, so a lot of fields have been prepped for early planting, TWITTER: @RICEFARMING

Speaking

which in Texas is associated with fewer production problems. I know some fields will be planted in early March, depending on rainfall and temperatures.

The old maxim, “early in, early out,” holds true for Texas. The longer the crop is in the field, the more likely the chance of encountering foul weather such as we experienced in 2020. Hurricane Hanna came ashore July 25 in South Texas and brought a lot of untimely rain to the western Texas Rice Belt.

Flowering main-crop rice was negatively affected. In some cases, harvest had to be delayed because of soggy paddies.

Some farmers also were forced to harvest in the mud, which rutted up fields adversely affecting the ratoon crop.

Then Hurricane Laura came ashore near Cameron, Louisiana, Aug. 27. My heart goes out to all my Louisiana friends and colleagues.

However, Texas rice farmers were somewhat spared from this Category 4 hurricane. We were on the “dry side” and far enough west to avoid the high winds.

Finally, Hurricane Delta made landfall near This black sooty mold was caused by Creole, Louisiana, Oct. rice planthopper feeding on ratoon 9. Again, our Louisiana rice west of Houston. colleagues suffered the brunt of Delta. But ratoon rice east of Houston experienced some lodging, poor pollination, and lower yields and grain quality.

According to the Texas Rice Crop Survey in 2020, the five most popular cultivars in Texas are 1. CL153; 2. XL723; 3. CL XL745; 4. Presidio; and 5. RT7301. Please check with your local seed dealers to learn about cultivars adapted to your geographic area.

I always suggest not “putting all your eggs in one basket,” especially if you plan to plant a cultivar you have not grown before.

You may want to contact Dr. Qiming Shao (“Doc”) with Nutrien Ag Solutions in El Campo, Texas.

Doc can provide information on his new release, DG263L. Doc’s email is: qiming@nutrien.com. You can also email Randy Ouzts, rice general manager at Nutrien, for information on DG263L. Randy’s email is: Randy.Ouzts@nutrien.com.

On another topic, crop consultant Cliff Mock and my graduate student, Jaclyn Martin, recently collected the exotic rice planthopper, Tagosodes orizicolus, from the stubble of a ratoon rice field near Rosharon, Texas.

Jaclyn transported the insects back to College Station where she is trying to establish a colony in a greenhouse. Once the colony is established, we will screen selected cultivars for resistance/ susceptibility to this planthopper.

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JACLYN MARTIN

Specialists

Specialists Speaking

Spread your risk by planting multiple cultivars DR. JARROD HARDKE

ARKANSAS Assoc. Professor/Rice Extension Agronomist University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service jhardke@uaex.edu Rice growers in Arkansas continue to see an increase in viable options for cultivar selection, with offerings continuing to evolve rapidly in a positive way.

This year will be the first in some time that conventional variety options will extend past recommending Diamond. For 2021, we will have Jewel, ProGold1, ProGold2 and DG263L. Jewel is an Arkansas release with slightly less top-end yield potential than Diamond but a more solid overall disease package to improve yield stability.

Progeny has released ProGold1 and ProGold2, which are similar to Diamond and Jewel, respectively, in yield potential and disease packages. DG263L is a new variety from Nutrien with yield potential competitive with hybrids, meaning it can be much greater than other varieties at times.

Clearfield varieties from Horizon Ag are in the middle of a rapid changeover to high-yielding, improved disease package offerings. CLL15 is a semi-dwarf with very good yield potential and excellent milling. CLL16 is a standard stature (tall) variety with the highest yield potential we’ve seen from a Clearfield variety.

CLL17 is competitive with the other lines. But in Arkansas, the lodging susceptibility may reduce its role unless planted very early. However, improved data on management may help in the future. The lone Provisia variety available, PVL02, has good yield potential and performs best when planted early. It fits best where weed resistance issues are the major concern and the herbicide program is needed.

For RiceTec hybrids, XP753 still has the greatest demand and proven consistency of performance. However, the introduction of RT7301, RT7401, RT7501 and RT7801 gives us more options going forward. Each of these hybrids appears to be very competitive with XP753. The FullPage hybrids RT7321 FP and RT7521 FP have shown excellent vigor and herbicide tolerance compared to previous Clearfield hybrids. Overall yields and milling are similar to the conventional hybrids previously mentioned.

For medium-grain varieties, Jupiter still leads the pack in overall package. However, Titan and Lynx have advantages and should increase in acreage. Titan’s earlier maturity and equal to or greater yield potential make it a viable choice. Lynx, while not yet having full market approval, shows greater yields compared to Jupiter and Titan.

CLM04 is very competitive as a Clearfield medium-grain option and does often yield right alongside the conventional options but it can yield slightly less.

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It bears repeating every year that it’s best to grow multiple cultivars to spread our risk. Maturity differences between cultivars are generally small, so it’s difficult to make many decisions based on that factor. However, considering that we plant so many acres in narrow windows and harvest takes much longer, choosing cultivars with some difference in maturity can have benefits at harvest.

Every year is its own animal, and 2020 was no different. Traditionally, the earlier we plant the better our yields. But in 2020, the mid planting window of late April and early May appeared to be the best.

Ultimately, earlier planting is still generally better, but we’ll only be able to work in the windows we’re given in 2021, the same as the past two years.

Please review Arkansas Rice Cultivar Testing data at http:// www.uaex.edu/rice to help with your decisions. While the table included here provides performance averages, the testing results offer location-specific results to better reflect performance in your area and on your soils.

Performance of selected cultivars in the Arkansas Rice Performance Trials, 2018-2020 Grain Yield (bushels/acre)

Grain Type

50% Heading

2018

2019

2020 Mean

CLL15

L

83

192

206

200

199

CLL16

L

85

207

205

200

204

CLL17

L

80

--

--

195

195

DG263L

L

80

--

239

233

236

Diamond

L

83

206

204

206

205

Jewel

L

84

186

184

186

185

ProGold1

L

85

201

206

200

202

ProGold2

L

85

183

183

198

188

PVL02

L

81

--

180

160

170

RT7301

L

81

--

243

231

237

RT7401

L

79

--

--

238

238

RT7501

L

82

235

240

230

235

RT7801

L

84

237

--

222

229

XP753

L

80

229

242

241

237

RT7321 FP

L

78

214

237

228

226

RT7521 FP

L

81

220

240

212

224

CLM04

M

85

205

208

189

201

Jupiter

M

85

199

218

193

204

Lynx

M

84

205

215

203

208

Titan

M

78

192

218

201

204

Cultivar

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