NEWS FROM HORIZON AG

Managing for Success with Clearfield and Provisia Varieties

Rice fields in South Louisiana are about 40% planted, according to Louisiana extension rice specialist Dr. Ronnie Levy. “Planting started off good, with warm weather and good rice emergence,” he says. “Rain this past weekend throughout the state put planting on hold, however. Most of the state will resume or start planting as soon as it gets dry.”

He says acres are anticipated to increase to almost 500,000 from last year’s 462,000 acres. “Demand to plant medium grain rice acres is low while long grain rice seed availability is in short supply.”

Planting in North Louisiana and other southern rice-producing regions will begin as the weather warms.

Webinars

If you missed the recent Arkansas Rice Best Management Practices webinar or the earlier webinar in Louisiana, they are available to view at your convenience on the the varieties page.

With significant acreages planted in new varieties like CLL19 and PVL04 this season, the webinars provide valuable insights from university and industry specialists that you can use to steward the Provisia® and Clearfield® systems while maximizing your production potential.

Management Tips

Horizon Ag conventional-statured varieties like CLL16 and CLL18 typically need less nitrogen than our semi-dwarf varieties. We recommend applying 120 to 150 lbs. of nitrogen per acre for each. Or, if you’re on very coarse-textured soils, you can go with 120 to 130 lbs. per acre of nitrogen, applied early in the season before flood.

For a semi-dwarf variety like CLL19, increase your nitrogen rate per acre by an additional 20 to 30 lbs. per acre to set the variety up to perform at the top end of its yield potential.

With all Horizon Ag varieties, we recommend having a final population of 15 to 20 plants per square foot when you start flood establishment. How to best achieve that population can vary based on your planting system.

In the North Delta, for instance, where the majority of the rice is drill-seeded, use a recommended seed treatment and then drill 55 to 65 lbs. of seed per acre for both Clearfield and Provisia varieties.

Note that while CLL18 and CLL16 have both proven their flexibility to perform across a range of planting dates and geographies, semi-dwarf varieties like CLL19, PVL03 and PVL04, will perform best when planted earlier in the planting period.

Disease Management

Most of the more recently released Horizon Ag varieties contain both the Pi-ta and Pi-ks blast resistance genes. An exception, however, is CLL18, which only contains the Pi-ks gene. With CLL18, if conditions are favorable for blast development when the rice is approaching maturity, a prophylactic application of a strobilurin fungicide is recommended.

A critical disease management practice for both PVL03 and PVL04 is to make a timely triazole fungicide application to protect against the risk of yield losses from Cercospora on the stem.

“Our strong recommendation is to make a prophylactic fungicide application using your triazole fungicide of choice when the crop is at ½-inch to 4-inch panicle formation,” says Dr. Tim Walker, Horizon Ag general manager. “It’s best if the treatment goes out early, no more than two weeks after mid-season. And the high rate of the triazole fungicide is needed. When we did that in South Louisiana, our Provisia rice yields became much more stable.”

Seed Availability

The high demand for quality rice seed this season is resulting in a lot of calls and questions about availability. We still have some PVL03 available for planting, but are in a sold-out status for PVL04, CLL16, CLL18 and CLL19. As requests come in, we are putting them on backorder. We plan to fill as many of those orders as possible if we find seed is available from returns or cancellations.

If you are interested in PVL03 seed or another elite variety, please contact your Horizon Ag District Field Representative or authorized Horizon Ag seed retailer. If you have questions about Horizon Ag Clearfield or Provisia variety management, detailed information is available by downloading the Horizon Ag Productivity App.

We’re expecting a big crop, and we wish you a safe season and a bountiful harvest. We’re proud to be a part of Rice Country and look forward to working with you.

Up-To-Date Production Info

The Horizon Ag Productivity App is the place to access critical management recommendations and tools. The app has been updated to make it even more valuable for rice farmers seeking information about Provisia and Clearfield varieties for 2024.

In addition to detailed variety information and suggested management practices, the app features calculators for drill calibration, milling yields, and return on investment.

The Horizon Ag Productivity App is available in the App Store or Google Play.