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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
Off-season bird habitat conservation programs with Jason Coslovich and Luke Matthews
Together, the UCCE Rice Farm Advisors seek to provide relevant, topical research-backed information relating to CA rice production.
Sarah Marsh Janish sits down with Jason Coslovich and Luke Matthews to talk about some of the bird habitat conservation incentive programs that are available for rice farmers who can benefit from incorporating these into winter off season plans.
CWA Resources
Rice Levee and Ag Corridor Program
Egg Salvage Program
Delayed Harvest Program
Fallow Lands Program
Other Resources
Field Notes
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-Yanish, and I'm a rice farm advisor for Colusa and Yolo counties.
SPEAKER_03:I'm Whitney from DeForest. I'm the Cooperative Extension Rice Advisor for Sutter, Yuba, Placer, and Sacramento counties. My name is Luis Espino. I'm the Rice Farming Systems Advisor for Butte and Glen counties. I'm Michelle
SPEAKER_01: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-Solano, 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 I have the privilege to sit down with Jason Kozlovich and Luke Matthews. Jason is from the California Waterfowl Association, or CWA, an organization whose mission is to grow California's waterfowl populations, wetlands, and hunter conservationist communities. Luke works for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, an organization that routinely partners with the CWA. We're having them on the podcast today to talk about some of the incentive programs that are available for rice farmers who can benefit from incorporating these into winter off-season plans. Hi, guys. Happy Halloween. for being here.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for having us. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_02:So let's start off with a couple of questions about your basic background and let's hear a bit about like what led you both to your various paths at these different organizations. Did you have something that made you really interested in waterfowl and conservation or was it a little bit of more of a happy happenstance?
SPEAKER_00:So I kind of grew up duck hunting and at some point, I think during freshman or junior year, freshman or sophomore year of high school, I saw CWA posted a video of waterfowl research technicians and they were doing nest searching. And I was like, that's a job. You can do that. That sounds awesome. So like graduated high school, went to college just to get a biology degree with hopes to work for California waterfowl. And the school I went to was UC Santa Cruz, which was marine oriented. And so right out of college there, I started volunteering for National Marines Fisheries, doing some steelhead research in a nearby lagoon. But luckily, my dad found a post on a hunting website that CWA was hiring technicians. And I was like, there's no way. And it's like, yes, send your email to brianhuber at californiawaterfowl.org. And I was like, that seems legit. So I sent it in and he called me back and hired me. So I started as a technician for a couple years. And I kind of lucked out. You know, it's a competitive field to get into. A lot of people spend a lot of years as technicians and seasonals and bouncing all over the country and Canada. I stuck it out and we had a couple new programs. programs kind of come online. The one was a hump program that CWA is pretty well known for now. And another one is the egg salvage program. And so that kind of filled the gaps in as to when we normally wouldn't need a technician. So that kind of kept me on full time. And then I just, you know, kept at it, got promoted to a biologist and egg salvage program coordinator. And egg salvage was obviously heavily ag oriented. And so when it came time to partner with Luke on the nesting bird habitat incentive program, I just kind of took that position as well.
SPEAKER_02:So it sounds like you've been kind of on this path for a while now.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if I'm just lucky or if I just really was dedicated to it and wasn't going to let, you know, do anything but this, but I'm happy to be here and I love my job, so I cannot complain.
SPEAKER_02:Sounds like a lot of hard work, but it sounds like the old adage of bad day fishing is better than a good day working. How do we say that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, what is it? A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work. That's it. Yeah. A lot of times it's the same. A lot of times we're chasing ducks down with traps and rocket nets and stuff. So it's kind of like we get to hunt all year long.
SPEAKER_02:And Luke, what about your background? I think yours, if I remember correctly, you've actually had a bit of history with rice.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So mine was not as straight and conventional or direct as Jason's was. After high school, I was not going to do any more school and worked construction, got into the construction, worked in refineries, did that for four years, five years, and then realized that didn't enjoy doing that every day, you know, long hours and stuff. And so I'd always liked wildlife and the outdoors. And so decided to go to school again for biology like Jason and did my undergrad in that and then started seeing there were career opportunities in waterfowl. And so I got my master's at UC Davis in waterfowl biology and then finished the that up and got hired by the California Rice Commission. And so I worked, I was the wildlife programs manager for the Rice Commission for four years. And then two years ago, This job opened up with this new program for nesting birds with CDFW, and I took this job. But I've worked with Jason and Cal Waterfowl and rice folks. I did my master's actually looking at post-harvest food availability in rice and corn. So I updated all the old historic numbers on how much waste grain is left after harvest of rice and corn throughout the valley.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, I actually didn't know that about your most recent research, but there's a lot of interest in that nowadays.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it was a lot of work, a lot of time counting seeds on the ground and taking soil cores and washing soil cores. It wasn't the most exciting master's project, you know, but it's important work and, you know, got me to where I am, so.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Let's kind of go into... I guess the meat of our program today. And for that, I'm going to give a bit of a background because we have some listeners spanning across the globe. We're very grateful for that, but that means we might need to explain a little bit about why the Sac Valley is such a unique environment for migratory waterfowl. So the original landscape of the Sacramento Valley was characterized by seasonal wetlands and grasslands, which over the years became converted to farmland and a lot of it rice production. I think partly because people saw the semi-aquatic nature of the ground itself and thought, hey, we'll plant a semi-aquatic crop and save ourselves a little bit of work there. But the winter floods that had been kind of problematic became a thing of the past, largely due to a nexus of canals and levees that diverted water for irrigation and flood control. During the past century, almost 95% of the Central Valley's original wetlands have become converted to agriculture, and more recently, housing. Going back to you guys with that loss of wetlands, how has migratory bird habitat been impacted?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, obviously it's been a huge change. Like you said, 95% of the habitat's been lost. But luckily in the Central Valley, they farm a lot of rice and rice is a really good surrogate wetland for all kinds of waterfowl and shorebirds. And everybody always knows that the birds migrate here in the winter. And although the rice fields are flooded for decomp and it provides food and habitat for all these birds, but it also provides really good brood rearing habitat for our local waterfowl that stick around a nest here in the spring. So I I mean, obviously the state's seen huge changes over the past several hundred years, but I think... We're fortunate in that we do have a lot of rice in the valley, a lot of variety of other agriculture surrounding the rice, which can act as a good nesting habitat for all these birds. So I think we're in good shape. Recently, we've seen a decline in our local breeding waterfowl, but it's due to a lot of factors. I mean, it's obviously due to expansion of housing and cities and stuff like that, expansion of nut trees, changes in farming practice. is but we're we're working on that um hopefully boosting our local mallard and besan population so
SPEAKER_04:yeah and i'd say just to add to that you know i agree with everything jason said but the the addition is you know what the remaining five percent of wetlands are you know very intensely managed which is it might sound like a bad thing it's a good thing right and so those are always you know except for major drought sort of scenarios right the private and public you You know, landowners that own and maintain those wetlands do so as efficiently and effectively as they can. And so even though it's only 5%, you know, those wetlands play a huge role. And then the rice landscape, especially winter flooded rice and other ag, you know, sort of helps keep that balance, you know. And so together they really work well to keep the Central Valley, you know, still an important migratory stopover for wintering waterfowl.
SPEAKER_02:Going back a little bit, mentioning the drought I know in 2022 and a few years before that, we saw a huge decline in rice acreage, largely due to the lack of available water for rice farmers. I think a lot of them saw their allocations cut 50, 75, 100 percent. How did that affect the habitat for the migratory waterfowl? Did you guys see anything in that regard?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it had a pretty big impact. I mean, obviously, if there's no water, you're not going to have any ducks or shorebirds or any other kind of species that needs water. um so you saw kind of a huge shift especially on the west side of the valley they got hit the hardest with the drought and so i mean it was just moonscape over here um i live in calusa so i drove around and saw it every day and but i mean the the little bit of benefit i'd say we did see from it is you have all those fallow fields and so a lot of them were left with weeds and stuff and you know you hope that there was enough water you know some rice field was being farmed with the well nearby or something to provide brood habitat for those birds but i'd say over Overall, yeah, it was pretty dramatic and not a good thing for our local birds. But they are birds, they have wings, and they can fly and find suitable habitat to get what they need.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and there's a lot of loss of, you know, the food availability we talked about, right? A lot of the stuff, you know, after rice is harvested, there's still about 300 pounds per acre of grain in those fields. And then those get winter flooded. And that is what largely supports, you know, a lot of the waterfowl. I think it's 74 4% of the nutritional needs for migratory waterfall are met just by that waste grain. And so when you take that off the landscape, you know, you take 30,000 acres times 300 pounds, you know, that can be pretty significant amount of food that's not there. And so they have to find that somewhere else. Maybe they're okay, but you know, they're in just a lower body condition in general. So when they leave the valley, you know, in February, they're not getting to their breeding grounds up in Alaska in the same sort of healthy, you know, and so maybe they lay less eggs, right? And sort of it's a loop that can sort of have a negative feedback in it.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, interesting. So we might be seeing the impacts of that drought for several years then if we see fewer birds as a result of fewer eggs and then I guess lower overall condition of the birds that were left.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Let's go into some of the conservation programs that are hosted with CWA. And so correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, there are several conservation programs that all fall under the umbrella of the Nesting Bird Habitat Program. Is there a short term for that that you guys like to use?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we call it NBHIP.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, great. So these programs, they encompass both annual and long-term projects that enhance habitat, not only for birds, but pollinators, which I found really interesting. And so Luke, you're the NBHIP coordinator. Can you give us some background on how these NBHIP hip programs began?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So just going back to how the program was created, and I'll be brief, but back in 2018, California waterfowl and some other folks worked together to pass a bill that created the program. And it was really established just to address the declines in breeding waterfowl populations that we've seen over the last few decades, you know, since the late 70s, You know, that was sort of peak numbers for breeding waterfowl and they've gone down over time since then. And so this program was trying to establish, you know, a way to reverse those trends, but it wasn't funded. And so, you know, the program was created, but not funded. So it sort of sat there. And then in 2021, another bill was passed that added fees to the California duck stamp, which hunters buy to hunt waterfowl and the upland game bird stamp. validation, which hunters purchase to hunt upland gay birds, dove, quail, turkey, things like that. And together that generates 2 million bucks a year on average to fund the program. And basically, you know, broad strokes, our objective is to improve breeding conditions for our local mallard and pheasant populations, you know, and benefit pollinators and other, you know, upland species when and where we can. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So one of those programs is the Rice Levy and Ag Corridors program, which at the time recording, August 31st, it has recently had its application window for the 2025 season opened. Let's hear about the background on this specific program and how long it's been around.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, it was always something we talked about at CWA doing something like the Rice Levy program. And we did some digging and one of my predecessors a long time ago at CWA did some research, looked looking for duck nests on rice levees that were not disturbed. And he found super high production on those levees. And granted, this is back in the heyday in the 90s when, I mean, there was ducks everywhere and everything was all fine and dandy, but he saw great production on those levees. Like, hell, well, we already had the wheat program at the time and the fallow ag program, so why not add the rice levee program to the mix? So we just started it like we started anything. Just come up with an idea, call some farmers, get an idea of what price range might be might be good, timeframe, all that stuff. Two years ago, we just launched it, kind of see what would happen. It still currently is an open bid. So basically, you tell us what it's going to cost you to participate in the program. It's bid by the linear foot of the levies enrolled in the field, which I mean, most farmers have a rough idea. But when they submit the bids to us, we go on Google Earth and exactly measure the lengths of their check. So we get all that straightened out. And then yeah, basically, it's a of the program is that they either leave the existing vegetation on the levees from the previous growing season, or they go in and re-ridge, burn, sickle mow, do whatever they want to do to their levees, but as long as it's before January 1st. The vegetation has to be left undisturbed on those levees until July 15th, which is the same for all of our programs under MBHIP. July 15th is the end date. After that, you can do as you wish with the vegetation because pretty much nesting is over at that point. But yeah, the application period is currently open. It's pretty straightforward. You just go on California Waterfowl's website, calwaterfowl.org, click the conservation tab, and then you'll see incentive programs. And then the wheat program, the rice levy program, and the balawag program all have their own separate pages under there. And you can just scroll through and look at all the info and click apply. So pretty easy.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And I'd add that this year we are also adding or allowing folks to enroll road edges on their farm. farms as well so while we started with just that sort of rice levees you know if you've got roads that are vegetated and have you know wide shoulders um that's something that could be enrolled too because the same data jason was talking about from you know the 80s or 90s um when they sort of did this pilot research they were finding quite a bit of nesting in these sort of contoured checks and road edges that didn't get mowed and stuff you know a lot of that was before you know before clean farming really was adopted and so this is almost a reverse the trend on that where it makes sense you know to provide additional habitat for pheasants and and waterfowl
SPEAKER_02:is there a establishment deadline for the levees i know most of the time you just have the levees left over from the season but are some people are you seeing that there's an establishment of levees in order to participate in the program
SPEAKER_00:as long as whatever you're going to do to them is done by january 1st so if you have no levees in your rice field that you know if say you're on rotation and you know that this so-and-so field is going to be rice next year You have until January 1st to build those levees. And that way that, you know, it's time for the rain to get on there, the vegetation to start growing. And then by April 1st, when ducks want to start nesting, there's good vegetation on there.
SPEAKER_02:Great. Thanks for clarifying on that. Are there any requirements that the growers or participants need to adhere to in terms of like allowing access or anything like that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So we do do nest monitoring. That's part of our contract with CDFW under the NBHIP program. We want to see which of our programs are the most effective at producing ducks and pheasants. And so part of the contract is that we're allowed to go out there, walk the levee tops. We typically do it every three weeks. Basically use a little noise making device, sweep the grass, make some disturbance and hopefully flush the hens off their nests, mark the nests. And then if we do have any active nests in the field, we come back once a week just to check on the status of that nest. Then we take all kinds of crazy data, vegetation height and incubation of the eggs and all that. this stuff. But we want to get an idea of what we're producing with the program and where we can get the most bang for our buck, so to speak, to produce pheasants and ducks. So we do go out in the fields and we do check for nests, but it's extremely loaded. It's just someone walking on foot once every three weeks, unless we have a bunch of nests out there.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I'm not sure if you mentioned this already, Jason, earlier, but the other requirement is that that field does have to be planted to rice. And so if the levees are vegetated and then for some reason, water reductions and you can't plant that, then you can't continue to enroll that in the program for that year. There would be the opportunity to apply for the fallow ag program, which is another program under the NVHIP. And those applications come much later in the year, late February, March. And so you should have enough time to sort of figure out if that's going to happen. But that's a requirement as well.
SPEAKER_02:Great. And so I guess now another question on this is, what's the application window and what does an application packet look like?
SPEAKER_00:I believe the application ends December 1st and then we'll have everything, we'll score all the fields, have our fields selected and everything by December 13th. So you guys will know really quick whether or not you're enrolled in the program. It's really easy. It's just click the apply here link on our website and then it just walks you through it. You put your info in and then it says field number one, tell me the name, the nearest crossroads, roughly how many feet of levees you got in there, how much per foot of levee do you want for that field, and do you want to enroll in another field? And you click yes or no. And it just walks you through it pretty straightforward. You can enroll up to five fields per application. And if you have more fields than that, you're more than welcome to just start a whole new application and enroll even more. Really straightforward. It walks you through it. And if you have any questions, my phone number's on the website, Luke's phone number's on the website, so you can call us and we'll answer any questions.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think the only thing you have to have sort of prepared for the application is a photo of the field, right? And something, because we ask you to include that. So that's the only thing you would have to get. But I mean, a screenshot, you know, a scanned, you know, field map, anything can work, you know, but otherwise we have to spend a lot of time, you know, tracking down where those fields are. And so having those in the initial application, everything else is super quick, super easy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Especially if your turnaround time, it looks, it sounds like it's about two weeks from the end of the window. So it's a pretty straightforward application and then a straightforward answer at the end of it. Is there anything else you guys would like to add about rice levying ag corridor program?
SPEAKER_04:Well, not this program, but I would say I mentioned earlier the fallow ag program and it really dovetails with this and it's all the same objectives and it works really well with rice farmers. The application is not currently open. That won't open until probably late January or February, and that is looking for farmers that have fields that will go unplanted for the next growing season. And as long as there's vegetation on those fields, it can be planted, you know, like a cover crop or or cereal grains or something, or it can just be volunteer vegetation. You know, it doesn't matter as long as there's vegetation on the field that meets the criteria that would provide some nesting benefit. we will work with farmers, allow them to enroll, just like Jason said, you know, we monitor them, everything, and you just have to leave them undisturbed until July 15th, because that's sort of the end of the nesting period. And then after that, you guys can go, they can go in, disk it, triplane it, you know, rework levees, do whatever they need to do, you know, for the next season. So that's something just to keep an eye out, you know, put a plug in for later this winter.
SPEAKER_02:Perfect. Great. Thanks for adding that, Luke. I think that'll be of interest to people who might be interested in these kind of programs.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and all the information, again, like Jason said, is all on the CWA website.
SPEAKER_02:Great. So shifting gears a little bit, another program with your organization that isn't necessarily around habitat management, but actually rather focuses on the birds themselves, is the egg salvage program. Now, Jason, you're the egg salvage coordinator. Can you explain a little bit about what egg salvaging consists of and how the program came into existence?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think egg salvage is really where a lot of this stuff stemmed from and it people have been salvaging eggs out of farm fields for decades in the valley but in 2014 CWA kind of took on the program in order to help facilitate you know getting eggs from the fields to the hatcheries getting the ducks banded getting the ducks released because it was basically a volunteer program some of the hatchery managers were getting paid but so we took on the program and yeah basically there's like two different ways the program works. One is in fields that are going to get dissed or mowed or something that has no value to the farmer. He's prepping the field for planting for the year. We can go in there with quads and ropes, search the fields. If we find any eggs, we take them back to the hatchery. And then there's fields that obviously have value and the biggest one in this valley is wheat and other cereal grains. So if those fields are being harvested, we run around and hand out bags with my name and phone number and instructions in English and Spanish to all the harvester operators. And then And they call me if they find a nest. They just throw the nest and all the nesting material in the bag. They give me a call. And at the end of the day, I just basically drive around to harvesters throughout the valley and pick bags full of duck eggs off of them and bring them to the hatcheries. And then once they're at the hatchery, they all get sanitized, candled for incubation stage. Any bad ones get thrown out. They all get numbered and labeled, thrown into incubators. Once they hatch, they all go and do legit duck pens. This isn't like some backyard thing. These are all professional made waterfowl hatcheries and there they get raised until five weeks age we come back in and we uh we ban the birds and then take them to suitable release locations sometimes that's private duck clubs sometimes that's a farmer's rice field i especially like giving back to farmers who participate in the egg salvage program so if they always call me every time they got a nest or they got a field to search i make sure i bring them some birds um yeah we got three locations one's in marysville one's at rancho escuan in uh Durham up there. And then the other one is North Delta Conservancy down near like Walnut Grove.
SPEAKER_02:The impacts of the egg salvage program must be pretty, pretty big. I mean, how do you guys track these birds with the banding program?
SPEAKER_00:So we track all the eggs that we handle. So any egg that I touch, getting it off a harvester, finding it in a field, dragging ropes, that all gets recorded. Each hatchery has their own records as well for every egg that comes in because they all have drop-off ink So a lot of farmers that have been around for a while and live close to those hatcheries know that, hey, I just found a nest. I can just, you know, on my way home, swing by Rancho Esquan and throw it in their incubator. And in the morning, they'll check that drop-off incubator, record any eggs that were in there. And so there's records of all that. And then obviously you have some eggs that don't make it. And you have a few ducklings that don't make it. They don't hatch properly or whatever. And that all gets recorded by the hatchery as well. And then every bird that gets banded, obviously, we record that data. We record species and sex and then where they were released and the date and then anytime anybody encounters one of those whether it's another waterfowl balladist out in the field banning birds catches a recapture bird or hunter shoots one someone finds one dead on the road they go on the bbl's website report those bans and all that information comes back to us so we can see you know how well these ducklings are doing and in the grand scheme of things we're not putting enough ducklings on the landscape to make a huge impact i mean at one point our local mallard population was five hundred thousand birds and now i mean we're down to 200 something thousand but that's still a lot compared to the 3 000 that we put on the ground every year but for one we're not going to let you know a bunch of duck nests get run over in farm fields and we have the capabilities to save them that'd be the wrong thing to do and two when you put the ducklings out you know obviously they don't have a mother to show them to hide from hawks or coyotes and don't stand in the middle of the road in the middle of the day stuff like that so we we think their mortality is pretty high the first year that we let them go the first summer anyways but we do have good data from their first basically their first duck season right so as soon as they make it to October it's duck season and we know what's getting encountered right duck hunter shoots it they report the ban and we compared that to all the wild mallard ducklings that we banded in the state as well and from their first duck season on it's almost identical survival rates so they do pretty well then but it it's not making it's not saving our local mountain population but it's the right thing to do and we're going to keep doing as long as we can
SPEAKER_02:good to hear that for growers who are interested in participating in the egg salvage program how do they get in contact with you
SPEAKER_00:just shoot me a phone call is the best way 408-644-3525 my number's all over the website just type in egg salvage or duck eggs on google and it'll be the first thing on the i get phone calls from all over the country like hey i got a duck nest in my backyard it's like i'm not in minnesota i can't help you um but yeah just just get a hold of me especially if you got i mean a field you're thinking about looking at i mean we always play on the safe side if there's a field you think might have duck nest in it we're just going to come out and search it because better safe than sorry better than the disc running over the nest yeah we try to make it as easy as possible on everybody and i mean we know everybody's super busy so we want this to be as as you know just a phone call is all it takes
SPEAKER_02:a couple of things before we wrap up is there any upcoming programs or events that you guys would like to have mentioned here.
SPEAKER_00:Just like Luke said, the fallow ag program and the delayed wheat program, we kind of touched on that, but basically it falls under the same rules for the most part as the rest of these programs. But obviously wheat's already planted and it's going to be good growing vegetation and you just can't harvest it until July 15th. And so that program will also be open right around the same time we open our fallow ag applications. So look for that one too, if you've got some wheat fields. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And for the wheat, you know, we've been talking about all the monitoring and quads and ropes, you know, for wheat, obviously, you know, that's not a requirement. There's, depending on what the wheat or, you know, cereal grain farmer wants to do, there can be no infield monitoring. You know, folks can walk out there or we could take quads out, right? And there's different payment rates associated with all that. It's all depending on what the farmer wants to do. You know, these are all voluntary programs. So we're not trying to force anything on anyone, you know, and they all have economic and Right. And you're sort of paid after the fact, assuming everything that you said you were going to do actually happened, you know, and so just something for folks to consider. I think it could be huge on the landscape and, you know, help out farmers with their budgets and operations, too.
SPEAKER_00:And there is a contract that we make them sign when we select their fields, but. at any point they could remove themselves from the program so if they decided you know going to be way too hot i got to harvest my wheat early or for whatever reason i got a distance field i decided i'm going to plant tomatoes in it whatever they got to do all they got to do is just let me know like hey this this field's done and a lot of times if there's an opportunity for us to go out there and salvage whatever nests were in there we'll do that um and then you just won't get paid for that field at the end of the year so it's just no we don't try to you know restrict anybody if your plans change don't feel bad about it we understand and it just basically no payment at the end of the year
SPEAKER_02:you guys are working with the growers it's not that you're making them jump through hoops or anything like that you're trying to make it as easy and simple as possible
SPEAKER_00:yep right
SPEAKER_02:well we've we've already heard jason we've already heard your phone number but i'm going to ask both of you if you're comfortable to share some contact information for anybody who wants to reach out and get some more information from you guys
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so my phone number is 916-539-3654, and then my email is just my first and last name, luke.matthews, two t's, I'm not related to the Charlie Matthews family out in Yuba City, so luke.matthews at wildlife.ca.gov. Yeah, anything related to nesting waterfowl, nesting pheasants, questions about programs, questions in general, I'm I'm happy to talk with folks.
SPEAKER_00:And again, my phone number is 408-644-3525. And my email is jcoslovich at calwaterfowl.org. And yeah, reach out to me. Any questions about these programs or anything regarding egg salvage or ducks in general, I'll be happy to talk with you.
SPEAKER_02:Great. Thank you guys so much for coming on.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.
UNKNOWN:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:If you're interested in learning more about the UC Cooperative Extension Rice Program, feel free to visit the UC Rice blog or the UC Agronomy Rice website. Stay tuned for our upcoming newsletter coming in early November, which consists of Rice Briefs, which covers Colusa Yolo, Rice Notes, which covers Yuba Sutter, Rice Leaf, which covers Butan Glen, and Field Notes, which covers rice in the Delta region.
UNKNOWN:Bye.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks for listening to Thoughts on Rice, a UCCE podcast from University of California Ag and Natural Resources. 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. And if we hear a comment or question that we think other people might be interested in, we'll share it on the show. You can also email us with any comments, questions, or concerns at thoughtsonrice at ucdavis.edu. Stay safe throughout harvest. And remember, like the growers like to say, have a rice life. Mention of an agrochemical 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.
