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October 7, 2016 CapitalPress.com Subscribe to our weekly California email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters 15 California Rice harvest proceeds as production, prices rebound WILLOWS, Calif. — California rice production is rebounding after two drought-diminished seasons. The Golden State’s rice crop is expected to come in at 48.6 million hundredweight, a 30 percent jump from last year, according to the Nation- al Agricultural Statistics Ser- vice ofice in Sacramento. With spring rains enabling many Northern California growers to get their full al- lotments of surface water, growers anticipate harvesting 559,000 acres statewide, up from about 370,000 acres in 2015, NASS reports. Willows-area grower Lar- ry Maben has harvested about 200 of his 800 acres and the going has been smooth, he said. “It looks like a pretty de- cent crop,” Maben said. “It remains to be seen what the yield is going to be, but it looks like a good crop in the ield.” Yields could vary from ield to ield, suggests Char- ley Mathews, a Marys- ville area grower and USA Rice Federation executive Tim Hearden/Capital Press A harvester inishes dumping its load into a bankout machine on a rice farm near Willows, Calif., on Sept. 30. The harvest of rice is underway in California. committee member. “At irst yield was down a little bit, but I’m hearing mixed results from everyone,” he said. “It’s about average.” NASS expects yields to be 8,700 pounds per acre, down 2 percent from last year. Growers reported a near-nor- mal planting season, and the mostly mild summer tempera- tures aided the crop. Rice averaged $414.22 per metric ton in August, up from $370.48 in March but still down signiicantly from a peak of more than $600 per metric ton in 2011 and 2012, according to the IndexMundi online data portal. However, the lower prices could spur increased exports to trading partners in the Mid- dle East and northern Africa, which had bought their rice elsewhere when prices were high, and California could regain a bigger market share for medium-grain rice now that some of its competitors have decreased production, the California Farm Bureau Federation notes. Among other ield crops in California, according to NASS: • The corn silage harvest is underway in the San Joaquin Valley. Corn for grain pro- duction statewide is forecast at 389,000 tons, up 47 per- cent from last year, as yields and acreage has rebound- ed because of last winter’s rains. Growers are set to harvest corn from 75,000 acres and produce 5.18 tons per acre, up 25 percent and 18 percent, re- spectively, from the 2015 crop year. • Cotton was past low- ering stage and bolls were opening as of the end of Sep- tember, and cotton defoliation began in some areas. Growers are expected to produce 484,000 bales of American Pima cotton and 260,000 bales of Upland cot- ton, up 34 percent and 58 per- cent, respectively, from last season. • Hay producers are still irrigating, cutting and baling alfalfa, while winter grains are being planted in the San Joaquin Valley. Tim Hearden/Capital Press Plant breeder Stanley Omar P.B. Samonte points out different rice varieties he’s growing during a ield day Aug. 31 at the California Rice Research Board’s experiment station near Oroville, Calif. Re- searchers are breeding plants for such traits as disease resistance and yields. Rice growers urged to use pesticides wisely to avoid resistance By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press BIGGS, Calif. — Insecti- cides used by rice growers to combat armyworms and other pests should be used wisely, a University of California ento- mologist advises. Registered insecticides such as Intrepid, which was given an emergency exemp- tion by regulators, need to be managed carefully so they will be available and effective in the future, extension ento- mologist Larry Godfrey told about 350 growers at an Aug. 31 ield day here. The reasons, he said, are the potential development of pest resistance as well as in- creased regulatory controls on the chemicals. Further, the consolidation of pesticide companies may lead to slower development of new materials to respond to pests’ resistance to the old ones, he said. “The products we have now we’ll have to ride into the future,” Godfrey said. “Be careful how you use these products so we can keep them around.” Growers can minimize in- stances of pests becoming tol- erant to the materials they’re using by limiting applica- tions, which can be done by using biological controls and adjusting cultural practices, Godfrey advises. For instance, since rice water weevil and armyworm infestations tend to be the most concentrated in the outer reaches of a ield, growers could limit treatment to within 50 or 75 feet of le- vees, he suggests. Another way to minimize resistance is to rotate types of registered pesticides used from year to year — for ex- ample, using a pyrethroid like Mustang or Warrior one year, then a neonicotinoid like Belay the next and an insect growth regulator such as Di- milin in the third, he said. The advice comes as some pest control advisers have re- ported that pyrethroids, which have been used intensively over the last 15 years, don’t appear to control rice water weevil as well as they once did, although this has not been quantiied scientiically, God- frey noted. Moreover, armyworms have a naturally occurring level of tolerance to insecti- cides, and in 2015 no regis- tered insecticide was effective in controlling large popula- tions of armyworms in the heavy rice canopy, Godfrey explained. Godfrey was one of nearly a dozen scientists who spoke to rotating groups of grow- ers during the ield day at the California Rice Experiment Station, which is mainly fund- ed by the industry-support- ed California Rice Research Board. Other topics included weed control and the station’s efforts to develop new rice va- rieties. The more than a centu- ry-old research facility in the middle Sacramento Valley has long been involved in breed- ing projects and more recent- ly has intensiied breeding for improved overall grain quali- ty, specialty rice and disease resistance, according to its website. In one project, plant breed- er Farman Jodari and others are developing long-grain rice, which is best grown in tropical climates, for produc- tion in the more temperate California weather. The scien- tists are working to maximize cooking quality, yield poten- tial and resistance to cold and diseases. “I was excited the day I got here and I continue to be ex- cited about the future of long- grains in California with its moderate climate,” Jodari said. Medium-grain varieties take up the lion’s share of rice acreage in California — 390,000 of this year’s antic- ipated 427,000 total acres, according to the National Ag- ricultural Statistics Service. The annual ield day is sponsored by the UC and the California Cooperative Rice Research Foundation. LIVESTOCK & HORSE Special Section Dec. 2nd, 2016 ce Ad Spa is ne li d a e D ber Novem 4th The West is one of the most productive regions for livestock in the United States. This creates a lucrative market for businesses whose products and services include: • Animal Health • Trailers • Trucks • Haying Equipment • ATV’s • Livestock • Feed • And Much More! 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