Division Of Agriculture’s DD50 Rice Management Program Now Offering Text, Email Alerts
Rice growers enrolled in the DD50 Rice Management Program can now receive text and email alert reminders
for six major milestones throughout the growing season. The program, initiated in the 1970s, helps growers time more
than two dozen important events throughout the season.
Division of Agriculture photo
LITTLE ROCK, ARK.
Rice growers enrolled in the DD50 Rice Management Program can now receive text and email alert reminders for six major milestones throughout the growing season.
The program, developed by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture in the 1970s, was originally designed to help growers accurately time mid-season nitrogen applications. Over time, the program has grown to include timing for more than two dozen different management practices throughout the season, including nitrogen fertilization, disease management, herbicide application windows and more.
The “DD” in DD50 stands for “degree day,” based on the concept of calculating a given day’s thermal quality during the growing season.
Major upgrades to the online program have been possible in recent years thanks to funds from the Arkansas Rice Check-Off, which provides the state’s rice producers to opportunity to help fund continuing agricultural research, and the efforts of the Division of Agriculture’s Department of Information Technology.
Now, rice producers enrolled in the program can sign up to receive text messages or emails alerting them to specific benchmarks throughout the growing season, including:
• End of optimum nitrogen window
• Final time to incorporate preflood nitrogen
• Beginning internode elongation (green ring)
• 50 percent heading
• Near drain timing
• Approximate time of 20 percent grain moisture
Jarrod Hardke, extension rice agronomist for the Division of Agriculture, said the new alerts will help save producers time.
“This new update will allow growers and consultants to be aware of their field progress and key management dates without having to directly access the program all the time to run reports,” Hardke said. “These alerts will automatically keep them updated of their crop and management progress, which has never been offered before.”
To sign up for the DD50 Rice Management Program, or to register for the new alerts, visit https://dd50.uaex.edu/. Current enrollees with questions about the new alerts should contact Hardke at riceadvisor@uaex.edu or 501-772-1714.
The DD50 program is managed by the Division of Agriculture’s Department of Information Technology. ∆