UC Rice Blog

The period between panicle initiation (PI) and heading is critical with respect to grain formation. During this time, cold temperatures can result in pollen sterility as the plants go through meiosis. Pollen sterility results in blanking. Nighttime temperatures below 58 oF can result in sterility.

The UCCE Rice Team will be starting a survey of weedy rice across the rice-growing counties in the next week. We are surveying fields that are known to have weedy rice infestations (from reports from the past 3 years).

There are a couple of interesting issues I have noticed while looking at fields, mostly in the northern part of the valley. One is bakanae. Bakanae is a seed borne disease that is managed by soaking the seed in sodium hypochlorite or bleach. Levels are very low and is not going to affect yield.

The UCCE Rice Team has developed a series of Factsheets to simplify and convey information about important topics that we find we are frequently discussing with growers and PCA's. Each fact sheet is 2 pages long, back to front.

A new herbicide is available this year for use in California rice: RebelEX, manufactured by Corteva. It is a premix of two other well-known herbicides: Clincher and Granite SC, both from Corteva. The active ingredients in RebelEX are cyhalofop (same as Clincher) and penoxsulam (same as Granite SC).