Arkansas Rice: Early Harvest Yields Look Good, Milling a Mixed Bag

Early harvest reports continue to sound very good.  Milling yields have been a mixed bag however. Conditions during grain fill combined with rice stink bug pressure may explain the variability and some reports of increased peck damage on rice.

Amount of peck is within the range of expectation but certainly higher than last year.  As stink bug pressure continues on later rice, it will be important to stay after them to keep peck levels down.

Rice maturity is currently tracking about 5-7 days behind DD50 Rice Management Program predictions for reaching 20% grain moisture.  This delay has been fairly consistent since early season weather set us back.  If you add 5-7 days to the 20% grain moisture prediction on your report, it should be very close.

Endigo ZC Update

The deadline for the crisis exemption to expire for Endigo ZC in rice was scheduled for Friday 8/27.  EPA is currently reviewing the specific exemption, and while that process is ongoing we are legal to keep using Endigo ZC for rice stink bug until EPA makes a ruling.  This is good news for our growers, as rice stink bug numbers have made a large jump this week.  This is mainly adult stink bugs and not immatures.

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With the variable control observed with lambda this year across the state, many growers switched to Endigo ZC after the crisis exemption was approved.  We are hearing mixed results.  A majority of the calls we are getting a very positive, however in some cases folks are finding threshold level adults a week after application. We have observed that as well in one of our studies near Stuttgart.

This is not common to see, but in all cases of these reports, these fields were the only green rice left around and has caused a sink for rice stink bug.

Our recommendation right now is to ride populations that are right at or maybe slightly over threshold for about a week before spraying.  With the adult migration we are currently seeing, we would need to spray every three days to keep them under control.

Endigo is the only option left for most of these fields.  We have a hard time recommending lambda at this point with the lack of control we have observed this year.  Hopefully we will be done with rice stink bugs on a majority of the rice in the state over the next 10-14 days however we know of some fields that haven’t headed yet.

Good luck, and we will keep everyone posted on the section 18 as we get updates.