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Thoughts on Rice
This podcast is for growers, PCAs, consultants, and other industry professionals in the California rice industry. We'll primarily be focusing on the Sacramento Valley and Delta Region of California. The UCCE Rice Farm Advisors aim to deliver extension information relating to the California rice industry.
Find out more about UCCE and California rice here!
Thoughts on Rice
Lessons from the Rice Yield Contest with Bruce Linquist
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Together, the UCCE Farm Advisors seek to provide relevant, topical research-backed information relating to CA rice production.
Bruce Linquist and Sarah Marsh mull over the results of the rice yield contest and the future direction of yield research.
Yield Contest Resources
Rice Yield Contest Video
Purpose of the Yield Contest
Lessons from the Rice Yield Contest - 2024 Winter Grower Presentation
Other Resources
Rice in the Delta
Mention of an agrichemical does not constitute a recommendation, merely the sharing of research findings. Always follow the label. The label is the law. Find out more at ipm.ucanr.edu.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of California. The material and information presented here is for general purposes only. The "University of California" name and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.
UC ANR is an equal opportunity provider and employer
Hello and welcome to Thoughts on Rice, a podcast hosted by the University of California Cooperative Extension Rice Advisors. I'm one of your hosts, Sarah Marsh, and I'm a rice farm advisor for Colusa and Yolo
SPEAKER_00:counties. I'm Whitney Brimda-Forest. I'm the Cooperative Extension Rice Advisor for Sutter, Yuba, Placer, and Sacramento counties.
SPEAKER_01:My name is Luis Espino. I'm the Rice Farming Systems Advisor for Butte and Glene Counties. I'm Michelle Leinfelder-Miles. I'm a Farm Advisor in the Delta region. I work on all sorts of field crops, grains and forages, but one of those is rice. And the counties that I cover are San Joaquin, Sacramento, Yolo-Salvano, and Contra Costa counties.
SPEAKER_02:Together, the UCCE Rice Farm Advisors seek to provide relevant, topical, research-backed information relating to California rice production. Today, Bruce Lindquist and I will be discussing the Rice Yield Contest, which was held for the final time last year. The purpose of the California Rice Yield Contest is to provide an opportunity for rice producers and UC scientists to share information about intensive rice production in California and to recognize individuals who have achieved the highest yields in the state. Over the term of the Yield Contest, which spanned from 2015 to 2023, the highest rice yields from three regions were honored at the Rice Winter Growers Meetings. The three regions were as follows. Region 1, which was west of the Sacramento River and north of Highway 20. Region 2, which was east of the Sacramento River and north of Highway 20. And Region 3, which was south of Highway 20.
UNKNOWN:Music
SPEAKER_02:Well, how are you this morning, Bruce?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, good. Yeah, we actually started some harvest of our trials of an RES yesterday, so that was kind of nice. What are you seeing out there? Are you seeing higher, lower yields or people harvesting? I mean, people are starting to harvest your area, yeah?
SPEAKER_02:They're starting to harvest. I haven't heard anything about yields so far. And I've only seen a few fields along I-5 harvested. There's a few more in Glen.
SPEAKER_03:Overall, I've heard yields are, I haven't heard many yields, but what I've heard is it's slightly down. But yeah, we'll see. I'm interested to see if that's just, I've heard very few. So I'm just not sure if Those are outliers or.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's not really enough data to make an estimated guess off of yet.
SPEAKER_03:No, no. I
SPEAKER_02:have a couple of questions for you about the rice yield contest, which has been going on for several years and finalized up last year. And so as a kind of the forerunner of this project, can you tell me what led to the creation of the rice yield contest?
SPEAKER_03:It was a big factor of, I mean, I'm interested in what's possible in terms of yield. That always sort of sets sort of a upper limit of what we can achieve in our cropping system. And I felt like we really didn't have any good ideas about it. And so it was, I really, just from a personal standpoint, in terms of my research, I really wanted to know what are the upper limits that we're able to do. I mean, California has a very high, yielding environment. I mean, it's somewhat similar to Australia where you get a real high yield potential, but we really hadn't nailed it down as to really what that potential might look like, what it might be. We had done some modeling and estimated yield potential through models based on data we had. And so we had an idea of what the yield potentials might be, but we hadn't necessarily seen it that much in the field. And so that was part of it. The other thing is you go around, you talk to growers and growers are sitting there, they're going around in their combines and they're seeing their really high yields. And they're wondering, is this real or is it not? So that also was just kind of a part of it. There are those yields that were kind of popping up that growers would see in their yield monitors, were they true or not. So it was kind of a mix of that. And yeah, I would like to add to that too. I mean, given the fact that we have these potential high yields, one of the big, how do we get there? And so when we did the yield contests, it wasn't just going out there and getting the yield. We did ask growers for a lot of information on how to do, what were they doing, you know, their management practices. So a lot of it was gathering information. Were there practices that farmers could do, could practice that would allow them to get those high yields?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it sounds like it's not only a yield contest, but also a survey of general and best practices in the farming system. So a lot of really good information coming out of just going out and talking to people who do this every single day.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. That's right. And importantly, when you're looking at this kind of data, it is good practices. Looking at the data, thinking about the data, you've got to understand these are all fields that were very good. We don't get information on big mess ups. You know, herbicides didn't work. You know, levees blew out. We don't get that kind of thing. We know those are not good. So these were all sort of cream of the crop fields in most cases. So you're looking at a very, thin slice of good practices.
SPEAKER_02:If everything goes right, this is what yields might be.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:With that, Bruce, can you tell me a bit about what some of the parameters of the yield contest were? Acreage size, anything that the growers specifically had to do in order to participate in the yield contest?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it was very simple. They had to have at least a 10-acre field. Usually, it was a lot more than that. In fact, it was all That was a lot more than that. But they also had to harvest a continuous area. So it wasn't taking, you know, some yield out of that area, yield out of this area. It was a continuous area that they had to harvest. A minimum of three acres had to be harvested. However, in most cases, growers were harvesting between four and five acres so that they could fill up a set of doubles. That's usually what it took to fill it up. It had to be a medium grain rice. We didn't take specialty rice, grain or any of that any of those varieties all medium grain and then they had to be willing to provide information to us they had to have access to a scale had to be able to get a moisture estimate for our calculations
SPEAKER_02:and I'm glad you mentioned about the medium grain restriction because other than the variety having to be medium grain there wasn't any limitation on what the grower could choose to plant what were some of the usual rice varieties that you saw in the yield contest?
SPEAKER_03:The biggest one was M209. That was the most common entry. M211, which had the highest yields typically, came in later. We started in 2015, so M211 wasn't around. But M209 and then M206 was the second most common entry. But M105, quite a bit of that. M205 in the early years, but then that kind of got faded So
SPEAKER_02:it sounds like it wasn't that there was maybe specifically a variety that was the best choice, but a range of different varieties could all achieve really high yield potentials.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, but we did see a variety effect.
SPEAKER_02:When you were looking at the yield contest, yield contests split into three regions for those people who aren't aware. So we had Region 1, which was west of the Sacramento River, north of Highway 20. Region 2, east of the Sac River, north of Highway 20. north of Highway 20 and then region three, which was south of Highway 20. Can you explain why you guys decided to split out the regions for the growers who grow in those regions?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we felt like and I think growers also felt like there were differences in yield potential depending where you were in the valley. We really wanted to encourage everybody to participate. So we thought that region one in particular, was going to have a slightly lower yield potential just based on what we heard. And so that's why we wanted them competing with similar growers and similar circumstances, environment, soils that they have to put up with. Region three down in the south, south of Highway 20, there's a lot of areas where there's a lot of crop rotation and that type of thing, which I would have thought would have led to higher yields. And then region two up in Butte, we know they have pretty good yields up there. but I didn't know how they kind of fit with the region south of Highway 20. So yeah, it was just really encouraging growers to compete with other growers of a similar environment.
SPEAKER_02:Off the top of your head, do you remember some of the highest yields in each of those regions?
SPEAKER_03:I do. In the northeast by Willows, which is region one, which we had thought would be a lower yield potential, the maximum yields were about 118 sacks
SPEAKER_02:Not too shabby.
SPEAKER_03:Not too shabby, but quite a bit lower than the other two regions. Over in the Butte area, the record was close to 136. It was 135.8 to be exact. And then south of Highway 20, that big region was 137 sacks. So those two regions were actually pretty similar, very high above 135 sacks. really good yields and then that area kind of in the north west a bit lower.
SPEAKER_02:Is there a specific reason or group of reasons as to why maybe as you head towards Glen County you might see a bit of yield drop off or is there just too many factors to kind of quantify?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I've given that a lot of thought. I think there is. Generally, this is a guess, we see higher nighttime temperatures in that area. And so higher nighttime temperatures, you have nighttime respiration. And we know that that has a potential drag on yield. So I think that's one area. I looked at the temperatures during the yield contest. And yes, the nighttime temperatures during the growing season are warmer in that area. So I'm sure that has part of an effect. The other thing that we just see in that northwest region is there's salinity. Soil salinity is a lot more common. And disease seems to be more prevalent. We see blast in that area. We see other diseases in that area. So I think that kind of that combination of things just might tend to lower yield potential in that area a bit.
SPEAKER_02:So across the region, were there any common practices amongst the winners that you could quantify and say that, yes, this was a good practice that could lead to a higher yield potential?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, I think one of the biggest, two of the biggest things that came out were, we saw a big year effect. I mean, and I think growers know, sometimes you have very good years and where everybody's seeming to do pretty good. Some of the other things that were, where a lot of, everybody's kind of down. And we've had, in the yield contest period, we had all of that. But I think the one thing that kind of, the big effect of those years was the ability to plant early. That was probably the most significant factor in our study was early planted fields tended to have higher yields. And there's a lot of reasons why that is. And we see it not just in the yield contest. If you look at statewide yield averages and then you compare that to the average mid, you know, where 50% of the rice fields were harvested, we see that same relationship. Early planting is leading to higher yields. yields. And what was happening there, I believe, is your long days, which are in June and July, your longest days, June 21, you want full canopy cover by then. I mean, you want to maximize all that solar radiation and pick it up. So when you're planting early, you probably are getting canopy cover in early June and you get those long days and you're really able to optimize and capture that sunlight. When you're planting at the end of May, you're probably not getting full canopy cover until the end of June. And then you're just looking at shortening days. So I think that's a big thing. And I realize, you know, growers have a lot of fields to plant, and they're not able to plant them all early. But certainly, earliness is a big, big help. And the other thing is, we've talked a bit about it already, I think, with the varieties. Long duration varieties did better than short duration varieties. varieties on average. So varieties like M205, M209, M211, those are all slightly longer duration by about a week. And so those were significantly higher yielding than our shorter duration varieties, which were typically M105, M206, and M210.
SPEAKER_02:Kind of on that same note, Bruce, I know this is a bit of an outlier, but if I remember correctly, M401, was that ever in the yield contest?
SPEAKER_03:It was. It was a winner in one year. Gordon Wiley, Baker Creek Farming, they submitted it as a contestant in one year and they did pretty good. I can't remember exactly what the yields were, but it was above 100 sacks and it actually won in the region for that year. But it's not really, it's obviously a very long duration variety, but it's not really bred for super high, high yield. But in one year it did, it It did win, and it did crack 100 sacks. I think it was maybe around 102, 103 sacks. So good yields.
SPEAKER_02:Bit of an outlier, though. Not something to typically expect out of it.
UNKNOWN:Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_03:Now, the other interesting thing is that we saw just while we're on the topic of variety is M105. It had quite a bit of entries, but M206 had a lot. 26 different fields entered M206 as a variety. It only won one time, M206.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. But M105 had 11 entries, but it won four times. And even in the last year, last year in 2023, M105 was our highest yielder last year with 132.5 sacks. So even though it's a short duration variety, it has a very good yield potential. We see this in our variety trials as well. The M105 typically outperforms M206 in terms of yields.
SPEAKER_02:And what's the, I guess, difference in days to maturity on the M105 and M206 between the two of them?
SPEAKER_03:Up around the experiment station, the difference is one or two days. Very little difference. M105 is just a couple days shorter. As you move south in the valley it gets to maybe three to five days difference. So when you get cooler, it does have a bigger difference and you are, you know, five days can be quite significant.
SPEAKER_02:Definitely. While we're on this topic, can you talk a bit about fertilizer applications? Was there any differences in a typical fertilizer application than maybe what the typical grower standard is?
SPEAKER_03:No, we looked for it. I mean, that's obviously an area I'm quite interested in. We looked for differences. And we didn't see any typical N rates. We're around 170 to 180 units of N. We looked for if growers top dressed, were they getting higher yields or less? Winners top dressed, some winners didn't top dress. We looked at that delayed starter application at the beginning where sometimes growers will put on that starter fertilizer, they'll fly it on 20 to 30 days after planting. And we didn't see any difference there. So in a way, that's good. We're seeing that whether you top dress or don't top dress, your yield potential is high. We know that. The same thing with that early starter application. You could put it on before planting, before flooding. You'll get good yields. If you wait and put it on 20 to 30 days after, you can still get good yields. So I think it's encouraging that way. We just didn't see enough range in nitrogen to really say better growers are putting on more or less nitrogen. I mean, they were typically a very tight range in terms of nitrogen application. We did see a little bit more nitrogen on the dry seeded fields. Those tended to run higher a bit, but apart from that, we didn't see much difference in terms of fertility.
SPEAKER_02:I'm glad you brought up the dry seeding fields. I did have a question. How many people enter dry seeded fields or alternatively seeded fields? compared to our conventionally water-seeded fields?
SPEAKER_03:It was only four or five fields that were entered, dry-seeded fields, out of, I think we had close to 90 fields. So it was a very small number. However, the dry-seeded fields always did well. And in fact, in the Butte region, it's a dry-seeded field that holds that record of 136 sacks. so it's That's the other thing that we saw that was encouraging. There's just not a lot of data to back it up. But our research also shows that the yield potential between dry seeding and water seeding is similar. We kind of saw the same thing with our yield contest.
SPEAKER_02:And then just, I think, one more question on practices. Was there a difference in seeding rate amongst the yield contest entries?
SPEAKER_03:You know, that's another thing we looked at. But again, it's just such a narrow range. growers were, I think the average rate, seeding rate was around 170 pounds of seed.
SPEAKER_02:Which is typical for California.
SPEAKER_03:That's typical. I mean, we kind of recommend 150, but I think growers have creeped up. But you saw rates, 150 to 200 was very typical in terms of seeding rates. And we didn't see any difference in between those.
SPEAKER_02:So I did want to bring this back up. I think you have on one of your slides from the Winter Growers presentations, this quote, good practices and timeliness pay off in all years, but more so in good years. Can you explain a little bit about what constitutes a good year?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So that was one of the interesting ones. You start to really dive into the data a bit and you do a little bit more analysis. It's something that kind of came up. In years where everybody did poorly, the gap between average statewide yields and the wind yields and the winners. was smaller than in years when everybody did good when everybody did good that gap became large and so you start to dive in okay so what that's showing is just that statement that you just you just said there that in those good years where things are going well for growers good growers good practices really shine there's a number of reasons for that we did see that in good years our early planting years so everybody is planting early and so we know that that has a has a help but i think there's a lot of other practices is that in good years people are doing everything in a timely way things are spread out properly they're able to get aqua flood herbicides when they need it. In a bad year, a tight year, everybody's trying to plant at the same time. You have a narrow planting window where everybody wants water. They all want their aqua. They want their herbicides all at the same time. And a lot of times our supply chain just can't deliver all of that at the same time. And so right away, you're just starting to do things in a less timely way. And so I think that's another factor that kind of plays in through a poor year, just lack of timeliness. And we're not able to quantify that in the yield contest, but that's just me kind of guessing.
SPEAKER_02:Well, we kind of touched on this next bit a little bit already, but what's not important for yield determination? We mentioned we didn't see a difference in fertilizer ranges or seeding rates and not too much of a difference in the varieties, but what else is not terribly important in yield determination? determination?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think the one thing that really surprised me, and it was the reason we kind of separated out that region south of Highway 20, or Region 3, I had thought that fields coming out of rotation, that fields coming out of a fallow, would be higher. And, well, generally, a lot of the winners were out of a fallow and were out of, or following an upland type of crop. That didn't come out as significant. And so that was one of the more surprising things. I thought that that would have come out as something significant. But just kind of looking at some of the research we've been doing at the Rice Experiment Station following a fallow, we do see that it's easier to get good yields following a fallowed field or a field that maybe we don't do it at the station, but maybe a field coming out of an upland crop. It's It's easier, but I think the yield potential is the same, just harder to get. You need to add more nitrogen to a continuous rice field compared to a fallow field, for example, and maybe the diseases are a little bit higher in continuous rice fields. But generally, we're seeing very similar yield potential even with continuous rice, which to me was a bit of a surprise.
SPEAKER_02:What were some of the consequences of the yield contest, kind of long-term lessons that you and the growers learned from doing this study over the last few years? I
SPEAKER_03:mean, for California, rice quality is so important. And there's always this question, if you're trying to get high yields, are you sacrificing quality? And we didn't see that. We do see some varieties, M211 has a propensity to, if you don't manage it properly, it can have lower quality. But just in turn, if you look at the same variety across yields, we saw no effect on quality. And so that was really good to know that we can strive for high yields without sacrificing quality. I think just for growers too, just to know that, you know, this is a small area of their field. What we saw that was kind of interesting because we also collected full field yields. And it was interesting. Sometimes growers got their yield contest yields was very similar to their full field yields. And that's really where you want to go. You want a full field with high yields. And sometimes the yields were really a lot less, maybe 30% less than the yield contest yield. So in terms of for a grower, just being able to try and get that uniformity across the field, they know what the potential is in that environment. Can we get that yield across the whole field is good. That was kind of one lesson, consequence.
SPEAKER_02:And for those growers who did win the yield contests over the last years, did they receive any perks or bragging rights? or any kind of honors and distinction?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they got a hat.
SPEAKER_02:You can
SPEAKER_03:never have too many hats. Had a EO contest hat, but actually the initial winners, they would get a hat and then they would get, like, I think we started off with a hunting knife and then we got sponsorships and then that really kind of upped the ante a bit and we were able to give out gators, John Deere gators in the last time we gave out a Honda ATV to the winner. So I had thought maybe that bragging rights would be enough to get growers to really want to participate in the contest. And I was kind of wrong on that. When we were able to offer a gator as a prize, very appreciative to our sponsors for being able to let us do that because that really expanded the number of participants.
SPEAKER_02:If you're interested in seeing the list of sponsors they are available on the agronomy rice website and there will have a list of sponsors and then the associated year that they helped us with the price so bruce this is the question on everyone's mind why is the yield contest ending
SPEAKER_03:yeah i mean a couple reasons um the big one is I felt like we'd gotten to the point where we had collected enough data to really answer a lot of the questions, to really start to pull apart what was really important and that type of thing. I didn't feel like getting more years of data would really help us understand a lot more than that. And so from a research side, that is one thing, that's one of the answers. The other side was I loved doing the yield contest. It's actually one of the funnest things that I did in in the whole year it's fun being out there with growers you're seeing them in a good field they're happy typically about their their rice and so you're catching them at a good time you get a sense of what's going on in the valley you talk about what's happening and so you kind of pick up a lot of just the feeling around the valley and i really like that But it totally killed by October. And I couldn't book anything in October because nobody can predict when they're doing a yield contest and they're going to be ready. You can't schedule it really well. You just know that sometime during this week or sometime during this month is going to happen. So it's just really difficult to run. and sort of keep anything going in October. We have a lot of other stuff going on in October. So it's just very difficult to just kind of keep that going. So I am thinking and I want to talk with you and other farm advisors about continuing something similar, but maybe a little less work. And so one of the thoughts that we've kind of thrown around is more have a contest just to see where we can break the yield record. So right now the yield record is up around 137 sacks. And so maybe something like the first person to 140 sacks. So that would limit the number of entries. We'd want to kind of know, okay, do you have reason to think that your field is yielding up around that area. Instead of doing 15 or 20 yield contests in any given year, we might be down to five or six where people are really entering very, very high yielding fields.
SPEAKER_02:Do you think that would place a restriction on the area that this could possibly be done in?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I do. And that would be a disadvantage of it. I mean, certainly looking at what we've seen in the past in that northwest area. It's very unlikely, not impossible. I'm sure there's good field in there, but it would probably restrict, we'd probably see less from that area.
SPEAKER_02:It sounds like there's been a lot of really great information coming out of this yield contest and some pretty valuable lessons just for people, not only growers, but everyone involved in the rice industry from the breeders to the PCAs to us over at UC Cooperative Extension.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's been super, super useful. And yeah, I do think you mentioned the breeders and stuff just to kind of get a sense of what the potential is that they understand that sort of upper limit of the varieties that they're developing. It really ties things together nicely. I would like to thank the growers that participate. A lot of times they're interested in seeing it, but sometimes, you know, we're out there and they're busy harvesting and stuff. And doing the contest does take a little extra time. We try to make it take as little extra time as possible, but it is a bit of a, you know, it's coordinating us getting out there. It's getting information. It's, working with the via trucks, getting to and from the dryers and stuff. So it does slow things down a lot. And I just really appreciate the growers for participating, being interested. And yeah, it was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02:Bruce, thanks for taking the time. If people haven't listened to your previous episodes, where can they contact you for questions?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you can call me at 530-902-2943 or my emails at balinquist at ucdavis.edu
SPEAKER_02:Thanks, Bruce.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks, Sarah. Take care.
SPEAKER_02:As we continue into harvest season, we don't have a lot of events on our docket. I would like to take this time to make a small announcement. The UCCE Rice Team podcast will be shifting from a weekly episode release to a twice-a-month schedule for the rest of the year. But don't worry! If you have suggestions for topics that you feel need to be a podcast episode, you can let us know in our feedback poll in the show notes or in our text link. In fact, One of our upcoming episodes was a listener-suggested topic, so stay tuned for that. For more information about our resources, you can find all of these linked in the show notes below. The UC Rice blog, the UC Agronomy Rice website, and our newsletters. Rice Briefs, which covers Calusa Yolo, Rice Notes, which covers Yuba Sutter, Rice Leaf, which covers Butte and Glen, and Rice in the Delta, which covers rice specific to the Delta region of California. Thanks for listening to Thoughts on Rice, a UCANR podcast. You can find out more about this podcast on our website, thoughtsonrice.buzzsprout.com. We'd love to hear from you, whether it's from using our text link in the show notes, a survey submission in our feedback form, also in the show notes, or in a comment or rating on your podcast streaming service of choice. You can also email us with any questions or comments at thoughts on rice at ucdavis.edu and remember like the growers like to say have a rice life Mention of an agrichemical does not constitute a recommendation, merely the sharing of research findings. Always follow the label. The label is the law. Find out more at ipm.ucanr.edu. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of California. The material and information presented here is for general purposes only. The University of California name and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.
