Arkansas Rice Farmer Continues To Remain Optimistic

Betty Valle Gegg Naeger

Senior Staff Writer

MidAmerica Farmer-Grower

   Fifth generation rice farmer, Nolan Evans, has a lot of experience raising rice on both the 8,000 acres he owns with his father, Lloyd, part of which has passed through five generations; and at the Horizon Ag property at Jonesboro, Ark. Of course, he has help – his 15-year-old son, Collier, and 15-year-old nephew, Luke Bullington, and other workers. 

   “ I have to mention the help, I couldn’t do all this without them,” he said.

   The farm headquarters is on the property cleared by his great-grandfather, Kenneth Leach, in the early 1900s.

   “I’ve grown mostly rice with a soybean rotation, then ventured into corn the last few years, since the price has been lucrative. Some land is a little more suited for corn than rice because of pumping costs. I’ve grown anything from conventional rice to Horizon rice, to maybe a specialty basmati rice,” he said.

   No cotton or livestock grow there, but the farm is still buzzing from early morning until late at night.

   “I get up early enough, my wife’s upset at how early my alarm goes off, usually by 5 on the farm, by 5:45 maybe 6 when I’m really dragging. Every morning I get out my notebook and figure out what needs to be done that day, I pretty much type out a list for me and my men so we can sit down and have something to go by, we discuss it, and figure out how we’re going to charge that day.”

   After the meeting, everyone disperses for their daily duties.

   “Of course, when we get the crop up we pull levees, and get the bean ground ready, we go straight into irrigation for the rice, laying poly pipes for beans and corn, then try to clean up everything, and keep things clean and mowed. We build in irrigation pipes, that have since deteriorated, then it’s time to replace them. Most of the rice  is flooded, we have very little zero-grade. Zero-grade is great for rice, but if you want to have a bean-rice rotation, my opinion is, you have to have a tenth per hundred grade or more.”

   After all the spring planting is done, it’s back to trying to level some ground or get ready for harvest.

   “ I try to have a bean and rice rotation to have different chemistries on grass, red rice, different organic material, mix it up into soil. I know many farmers grow rice continuously, but on my particular soil it seems I do better if I do a rotation. I’ve tried to do continuous rice, but the yields keep getting smaller, they don’t even cover the input costs. I can’t describe the soil, but I call it white dirt, white silt loam.”

   He hasn’t used cover crops in the past, but plans to try some in the next two  years just to see how it works.

   “It’s a very interesting thing, we need to try to keep our minds open and see how it will fit our rice crop and the rice and bean rotation, he said.

   Keeping the rice crop irrigated is an important task to him.

   “Usually, with the different rice fields and contour levees, I pretty much have a man around every field, night and day, the irrigation pumps morning and afternoon; and I haven’t invested in any automated system. We’re testing a system now on the farm, when the water level gets down to a certain level in the field, the system lets us know that it’s time to cut it off and keep from running any water down the back side. We like to be conservationists in saving our water, not over pumping for one. Pretty much on 99 percent of the farm we have a way to recoup our water through a reservoir or a water recovery system. I think we have 12, three lift pumps scattered over the farm hooked to underground PVC pipes.”

   Evans strongly approves of Horizon Ag Rice.

   “With a long-time rice farm you start getting resistant barnyard grass, and the Horizon Ag rice with Clearfield technology has allowed us to have another form of action to try to control red rice, barnyard grasses and other grasses and weeds. I’ve probably been using Horizon Ag for eight years.” 

   The results from those eight years have shown a lot of ups and downs.

   “All farmers know there’s a lot of ups and downs, all sorts of weather issues. I’ve made really good yields and I’ve had some bad yields. Just depends on the weather,” he said.

   “Last year there was a chart on yields since about 2012. Rice yields were like this in Arkansas,” Evans said, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. “About 2013-2014 they just pigged out, then fell back down, and then last year they went back up. I can go through my yield records and they have just followed that chart. Had I done anything different? No I have not. I still had all the fertility I needed anyway. I controlled the grasses; or course, we do have more solid lower yields than we used to, just because we have the technology that’s bred into this rice; but we still have to have the technology, then we have to have good weather.”

   Evans discussed the cost of growing Horizon Ag hybrids versus the cost of conventional:

   “Yes, conventional rice is cheaper, but can you control the red rice? Either price is so bad, and you get docked at the mill; or if you have too many grasses you can’t control, that smothers the rice out and your yield’s not very good.”

   He continued discussing the pros and cons: “Horizon is a little more expensive to buy for seed, maybe you put a little less chemical on it. Maybe conventional is still working now, maybe your bottom line is the same as conventional might have been 10-15 years ago.”

   These are all the things a farmer has to consider. Still, he’s optimistic.

   “You got to be optimistic every day. If you’re not optimistic you’ll go crazy,” he said with a chuckle. ∆