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If Needed, ‘Spoon Feed’ Nitrogen On Rice
Dr. Jarrod Hardke, Rice Extension Agronomist with the University of Arkansas, talks about the difficulty
of nitrogen fertilization partially due to earlier planting dates and early cool, wet conditions.
BETTY VALLE GEGG-NAEGER
MidAmerica Farmer Grower
MEMPHIS, TENN.
Early season cool, wet conditions in recent years, partially due to increasingly earlier planting dates, have made nitrogen fertilization more difficult, according to Dr. Jarrod Hardke, Rice Extension Agronomist with the University of Arkansas.
When stand loss occurs, farmers are faced with the difficult decision of pouring more money into the crop by replanting, or continuing to nurture the present stand and hope for the best. The questions arise, “what’s worth keeping and what’s not?”
Planting date does have an effect on rice yield. However, when stand loss occurs in late April or early May, there’s already a 10 percent to 15 percent loss of yield potential.
“Based on results from traditional seeding rate trials and field observations, it has been recommended generally to replant rice fields when stand densities fall below three plants per square foot for hybrids and below five plants per square foot for pureline varieties,” he said. “However, I have been on the combine where you could still see the ground at harvest, but the yield still was acceptable. We cannot back off on our nitrogen rate due to reduced stand,” Hardke cautioned.
“We have lost a lot of fields from early flooding in past years, yet we saw those fields turn into 170/bushels an acre,” he added.
Data continues to promote nitrogen application onto dry soil as the most efficient means of nitrogen fertilization in rice. However, if nitrogen can’t be applied in dry soil, then there are ways to apply it in mud, or at the last resort, it can be “spoon fed,” at four or five shots of 100 pounds of nitrogen each. “These alternatives can be used to achieve similar grain yields to optimum methods, but are less efficient in that they generally require more nitrogen to achieve those yields,” Hardke said. ∆
BETTY VALLE GEGG-NAEGER: Senior Staff Writer, MidAmerica Farmer Grower
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