Posted April 22, 2024 | By: Nutrien Ag Solutions

Crop Consultant Kyle Huvar from El Campo, TX, discusses rice farming in his region and the benefits of rotating rice acres.

Episode Transcript:

Farm Progress broadcast presents this Week in Agribusiness Serving America's most essential industry brought to you by Case IH solutions for every challenge, equipment for every farm. Case IH, built by farmers. Welcome back to This Week in Agribusiness. We're going to turn our focus now to agronomy, specifically Agronomy for your Acres with the experts from Nutrien Ag Solutions.

This week, we're going to Texas to talk about rice farming with Crop Consultant Kyle Huvar. Kyle, thanks for joining us this week. And tell us, what is the state of rice production down there in south Texas right now? Hey, Mike, how's it going? Thanks for having us. Really excited to be here. Everything is going good so far for this rice growing season.

We are wrapped up on planting and now we're going into flood season. So rice fields that have got stands and are sizable are getting water flooded. And it looks like you're standing one of those flooded fields with us today, is that right? Yes, sir. This grower now, this grower planted early March, around March 12th. So it's about time we're going to have flood.

We got fertilizer out and herbicide down. All right. Production is moving. Kyle, let's look out. Longer term crop rotation, how important is it down there in your region of south Texas? My opinion is crop rotation is very important. A lot of the high yielding growers in our area rotate between a rice to an idle fallow ground, which usually has cattle on it.

So it'll be one year of rice production followed by idle or cattle ground here. And then rice again, which gives it the ground time to heal and also allows those cows that eat on those weedy rice problems and grass species that trouble us during the growing season. Well, that certainly makes sense. Kyle, I'd like to get your opinion of another important topic in this day and age, and that's sustainability.

What type of sustainable practices do you see in the rice industry in your area? Sustainable efforts are a big thing in our area because of water shortages just due to drought years and stuff. Rice farmers in our area have done a lot of work through laser leveling land that's changed the topography to allow for a more uniform flood which mitigates soil and water loss.

That's been our main one. It's incredible to see what technology can do. Kyle, to that end, I'm curious about weeds. What weed pressures do you see in south Texas and how are you recommending growers grapple with them in the field? Yes, sir. So our number one weed problem or grass that I battle is barnyard grass. We have facet and propanil resistant barnyard grass.

Really, the best way to deal with these troublesome resistant weeds is to start clean and stay clean. So I tell all my growers when the rice is planted behind the drill, we go with the pre-emerge herbicide to try and start clean and stay clean. It's a lot harder to come back over the top and more expensive to control those weeds later when you can hit it off up front.

My favorite product to run pre-emerge on rice is Command 3ME by FMC. With our sole adjuvant and Infuse Inc. Infuse helps bind the Command to the soil and allows for time for the water that we need to activate. Lots to think about here for this growing season, particularly for those rice growers. Kyle Huvar, Crop Consultant with Nutrien Ag Solutions.

Thanks for joining us this week for the update on Agronomy for your Acres. Thank you so much. If you want to learn more, visit NutrienAgSolutions.com