Important Rice Dates/Harvest Wrap Up Comments

On November 18th, a candidate for the Mississippi State University Rice Breeding position, will be giving a seminar in the Capps Classroom on the Stoneville campus at 10:30.  We are excited about progress that our breeding program has made, and look forward to new vision in that very important program.  We welcome any who have interest to come and participate in the interview process.

Additionally, our Annual Rice Grower Meeting will be held at the Bolivar County Extension Service Auditorium on Thursday, November 21, at noon.  Tom Allen, Jason Bond, Larry Falconer, Jeff Gore, and Tim Walker will be there to present information regarding the 2013 Crop as well as information pertinent to planning for the 2014 season.  Lunch will be served.

USDA reported last Friday that the estimated average yield for rice in Mississippi is 7500 pounds per acre (167 bushels per acre).  If this estimate holds, we will break the record of 7350 pounds per acre set in 2007.  In addition to exceptional yields, grain appearance is much improved based on chalk measurements we performed on the 2012 and 2013 On-Farm Variety Trials.  Averaged over 24 entries, chalk averaged 5% in 2013 compared to 10% in 2012.  The system we employed to measure chalk is more sensitive than the subjective measurements typically made by rice graders.  Therefore, I believe customers who have complained about “chalky” rice in the last few years will be more pleased with the 2013 crop.  Though the rice looks more appealing, we planted 15 cultivars in Mississippi in 2013.  No one cultivar accounted for more than 20% of the acreage.  Thus, comingling of cultivars with different grain dimensions and cook type will continue to have to be worked on by the industry.  We encourage all growers who store their own rice to avoid as much as possible the comingling of rice.  We also encourage accurate reporting of varieties when shipped to drying facilities.

The 2013 Mississippi Rice Variety Trials are complete and are in the final review prior to publishing.  I will be able to share the draft report next week.  I hope to see many of you at one or both of the meetings next week.  If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.