Dry Conditions Add To Economic Woes For Rice Producers

DR. BOB SCOTT

FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS

My grandpa used to say all the time “this is gonna make me crazier than I was that dry year”.  Growing up in Oklahoma I generally had no idea what he was talking about – every year was a dry year as far as I could tell.   This year in Arkansas I am starting to understand what he meant!   I hate that we are not having any appreciable rainfall in a year when we need cheap weed control.  It just doesn’t work that way with the herbicides and weeds that we are working with in Rice.  Maybe by the time this is published we will get a rain or two to help us out.

Most folks automatically think about not getting our “PRE” treatments activated when it does not rain and this is a big problem.  We rely so much on preemergent shots of Command and other mixes due to resistance in barnyardgrass that it will create very expensive post applications later in the growing season.  Some of those are already going out.   I have cannot remember the last time I saw so many fields this early with levees pulled that are ready to flush or being flushed.  When we must turn the wells on this early it’s not going to be a cheap crop for sure.   Having said that my best advice is do not waste a flush, get a strong residual treatment out there before that water hits the field so you can also activate your residual herbicides in addition to irrigation to get a stand.

The other issue that the drought brings unfortunately is poor activity from our POST herbicide options for rice, especially for grass control.  Propanil works OK in dry conditions, but so much barnyardgrass is resistant to propanil that this becomes an issue very quickly.  We also find ourselves spraying big grass on little rice and this can result in significant injury to the rice, insult to injury, however rice is resilient to propanil burn and should recover following a rain or flush.

Herbicides like Newpath/Preface and most other als-herbicides are moisture loving and green actively growing weeds to work correctly.  Clincher needs very wet conditions for best results and in my experience RiceStar HT does too, but to a lesser extent.  The phenoxy like products and the contact burning type products can work well when its dry but still not as good as with good moisture.  I know this is making consultants jobs tough this year.  I have had difficulties answering questions that don’t involve asking when are you going to flush?  

One last comment.  I think a lot of people are talking about putting on an early flood this year.  I think this is a good strategy for weed control if we can get it mostly cleaned up or have confidence in a good preflood weed control treatment.  If it not, then post-flood treatments will add costs.   ∆

DR. BOB SCOTT

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS