UC Rice Blog

As the crop starts advancing towards heading, one concern is blast. So far I have not seen any leaf blast. Blast spores need free moisture on the leaves to germinate and infect. Leaf wetness is a good measure of free moisture. Typically, leaf wetness increases during the evening and stays high until early…

We regret to inform you that the Rice Production Workshop originally scheduled for July 23–24, 2025 has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.If you have already paid the registration fee, we’ll be refunding your payment in full. The process is currently underway. If you have any questions regarding…

Time to round up the usual suspects! When talking about arthropod control in California, the usual suspects are rice seed midge, tadpole shrimp, and armyworms. I will focus on rice seed midge and tadpole shrimp in light of recent pyrethroid exceedances detected in the Sacramento Valley. The challenge…

 In the last month, I’ve had more frequent calls about how to cut costs, with several people mentioning cutting their chlorine seed soak treatment in an attempt to bring down their input costs. This seed soak is used to eliminate bakanae spores from rice seed and is one of the most effective methods to…

Blanking (floret sterility) can occur during meiosis (pollen formation) when nighttime temperatures drop below 58 oF. Blanking can cause reduced yields. The cooler it is and the more nights during this period with low temperatures have an increasingly negative effect.  You can see in Figure 1, where in…