Weeds AR Wild S3 Ep16. Late Weed Seed Control and Options for Ratoon Rice (7-24-2023)

 Weeds AR Wild S3 Ep16. In this episode of the Weeds AR Wild podcast series, Dr. Tommy Butts and Dr. Jarrod Hardke discuss options and considerations for late season herbicide applications to reduce weed seed production. Additional discussion occurs regarding weed control options in ratoon rice. 

Transcript

[00:01] Intro/Outro

Arkansas Row Crops Radio, providing up to date information and timely recommendations on row crop production in Arkansas.

[00:11] Tommy Butts

Welcome to the Weeds AR Wild Podcast series as a part of Arkansas Row Crops Radio. My name is Tommy Butts, extension weed scientist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. And thank you all for joining us today for the next episode of The Weeds AR Wild podcast series this year. I think we're at number 16, 15, something like that, 16 episode 16 for Season three here. And in this episode I get to be joined by Dr. Jarrod Hardke. Jarrod, do you want to say hi to everyone out there in podcast land?

[00:43] Jarrod Hardke

Hello, everybody.

[00:46] Tommy Butts

Thanks. So today, you know, obviously, since we got Jarrod on, we're going to talk about some soybeans today. Oh, wait, no rice. That's right, rice. Okay.

[00:55] Jarrod Hardke

Keep it straight, keep it straight.

[00:57] Tommy Butts

That's right. So we're talking about a couple late season things and rice that we're getting some phone calls on, particularly some late season herbicide applications. The, you know, kind of the do's and don'ts there. And then because of the year we're having, you know, we both had a couple calls on some folks, maybe considering some ratoon rice in Arkansas, which is out of the norm. And so, we wanted to hit on just some things there to consider if you happen to be in that that area where you might have a chance at doing that. So before we jump into some of that stuff, though, Jarrod, the first thing I want to do is just kind of turn it over to you and maybe kind of give us an an overall look at how the year has been, you know, how it's looking, what our final acreages were, you know, what, what weed control has been looking like to you out and about that kind of stuff.

[01:44] Jarrod Hardke

Well, it seems like every year my, my go to line anymore and what a strange year it's been. And, and that doesn't seem to be really, really changing for 2023, but certainly a tale of different parts of the state and even more so than that tale of the the performance of different planning dates. And, and that has to do not, not just with their performance, but going to our weed control acreage, you know, just kind of how everything shook out and ultimately really the the northern part of the state got the earliest biggest jump this year, really got out there at the very end of March, into the first couple weeks of April, and certainly not just rice, like they planted everything within the last couple weeks of April. A nice change of pace. It seems like we get one of these years roughly every five years or so, particularly in northeast Arkansas, to get that kind of run. So we're, we're very excited to begin the year. Acreage was, was already certainly looking up compared to the last two years that they were both fairly early down 1.2 and 1.1 million acres last couple of years where we're looking at 1.3 million-ish headed into this year. And really the way everything transpired by the early part of May, it seemed, you know, fairly comfortable. We were going to easily make that 1.3 million. And I really felt like we were going to get really close to 1.4 million based on everything I was seeing up and down the state, I was a little surprised. The June survey number came in, still just barely north of 1.3. So again, kind of still waiting on the FSA acreage reports to start coming out toward the end of August and see whether it really is that, you know, that close still down to 1.3 or if it did get a lot closer to 1.4. And again, it looks like 1.4 out there up and down the state. I think that there still a little bit of debate about how much medium grain is a part of that. I'll say that I felt pretty good about that part. You know, 160,000 plus acres of medium grain, that's a substantial jump. We thought we could approach 200,000 acres, but seed supply was a huge question on where that would leave us for medium grain. You mentioned, you know, kind of how does weed control look out there? I'll be honest, I was not too excited in the early part of the year about how it was going to turn out. The month of May was not very kind from how dry in the constant northeast wind. We couldn't make some applications we wanted because the wind wouldn't change directions. Didn't expect as much activity because of the dryness, all of those factors. All of that being said, in my opinion, up and down the state, the weed control still was much better than what I anticipated that it was going to be.

[04:46] Tommy Butts

No, I 100% agree and my work for weed control across the state has kind of been variable. That's kind of been my word is variable. And like you said, I agree. I think it's better, you know, than it.. there's more fields that are good weed control than bad. Let's say that. And I think to me it's really boiled down to, and we hound on this every year, but it was the timeliness factor more than anything this year. You know, the guys that got in early that could get those herbicide applications out because they weren't fighting the wind or other crops up around them or things like that and then got to flood early. You know, those are the fields that that are just clean, right? There's not a single weed out there. And then the ones where we got behind, we couldn't get water because we were, you know, out of, you know, out of our power units or whatever else. You know, we were delayed on getting moisture. It got hot there for that stretch. We are playing catch up trying to kill big grass. Those are the ones that we just never caught up on and are our masssive problem child fields now. So more than ever, it was a timeliness thing this year. If we could get residuals out early, get the flood on early, everything's looking great. And then the ones where we got behind on, we've just been behind all year and those are the messy looking ones.

[06:02] Jarrod Hardke

Yeah some of those absolute best when you had that that you know toward the early April planting and got those residuals out right then and then they had the good both good fortune and good timing to go ahead and get another overlapping residual before the that rainy, cool period at the end of April and got that activation of the overlapping those were in way better shape as we dried out into May to just be cleaning up small grass, just just little stuff hitting it and yeah, trying to take things to flood. And a lot of the fields that were planted right in front of that cool wet period - yeah, you got one residual out by the time it ever straightened up into May, it was it was a jailbreak coming and trying to get that back under control. I mean, again, as you mentioned then we started just fighting from behind for everything from there to be planted into the beginning of May. It was luck whether you got anything activated even after you did plant any of that. And so, I mean, you never in some cases never really got an opportunity for residual activation to even get you ahead of the game. And I mean, how many calls down did we have on, you know, here's the conditions. Is Ricestar going to work? Is Regiment going to work? Is I mean, you know. pick the product and you know on and on we went most of the time it was, well, nothing's going to work great, but you got to do something and go. It's just going to get worse.

[07:28] Tommy Butts

Yeah.

[07:28] Jarrod Hardke

So sometimes there was no right answer.

[07:30] Tommy Butts

That's right. Yeah. I can't tell you how many calls I had on that. And by the end I was frustrated because it's it's hard when you get those calls over and over again and you have no answer. There is nothing right now. It's not going to work. I just don't know what to tell you. You know, and and like you mentioned, like, well, you got to try something. And, you know, our number one option, especially when we started talking to salvage, was Ricestar and Regiment. That's an expensive treatment and it's like, you know, you might get some, you're definitely not going to get all of it. You know, I don't know what to tell you from that standpoint on, but that's where we're at. You know, that's that's what it is. So it's going to take down the rice. You probably got to do it and it's your best bet at killing some stuff. But otherwise it's just it's not going to be pretty. There's just nothing we can do about the weather when it gets to that point.

[08:11] Jarrod Hardke

Well, and then you go and throw in the wrinkle we touched on, but with kind of everything planted and emerged so early, some of the sort of the old school, you know, ways out were, well you didn’t have beans around it and you didn't have, you might have a little corn, but this year, corn acreage was up and it all went in really early. So, well, I need to spray this, but, you know, I got beans over here. Well, okay, so Regiment’s out. Well, I need to spray Ricestar, Clincher well corn’s right there so those are out. And so we had at least portions of fields just leave that stuff out. Knowing that they were going to be a little bit more of a grassy mess because there's nothing you can do. It's either you wait until you get the right wind, that might be ten days from now, and now you let the whole field become a problem instead of just a part over there. And so it's not hard to see driving around to see some of those edges, you know, the few acres up next to a bean field or whatever. And you can go, yeah. You know what was going on there that, that strip’s grassy and the rest of the fields clean. Well, they couldn't get a wind, they had to lay off and and believe it or not I'm happy to see those. Given the, given the conditions, I'm like I know the rest of the field is going to do really well because we did what had to be done in the condition we're going to make good rice and all the rest of it. We're going to cut a little bit of grass. I've been saying that since May: Everybody take a deep breath, we're going to cut a little bit of grass this year, move the crop along.

[09:45] Tommy Butts

Well, that's like you said, it's much better to see that because, you know, then that that they cut down on the drift potential there. And let me tell you, I will take every call in the world about trying to figure out weed control options instead of having to get called out to a drift complaint. I hate getting those phone calls with a passion, so I'll take that any day of the week.

[10:05] Jarrod Hardke

Yeah, you know, it's a bad year for some of that going on. I mean, I always get some of those that I'm, you know, pulled out too. But when I start getting loaded up on them, it's because you guys are, y'all's plate is completely full and he starts bleeding heavily into me. Yeah, I'll get a little too much going on. And then again, this in the year where everybody was doing the best they could. But when you get five, six weeks of a north, northeast wind, when we're used to a southwest, it even some of the outs that folks were planning for based on what they were planting or their neighbors were planting around them, never get the predominant wind you expected to get to be able to work around. It created some, well I’ll just say, it's a nightmare scenario for weight control.

[10:53] Tommy Butts

Yeah, that's for sure. Nightmare is a great way to put it in some of those some of those different areas. That plays well into nicely, though our next topic too that is, you know, some of these places where we do have either escapes or we still had, you know, some left over weeds or whatever else. You know, a lot of the calls right now are some of like the jointvetches, coffee beans where we're trying to knock out black seed, that kind of stuff. You know, talking about some of our late season herbicide options to take care of some of these things. And when I say late season, you know, I'm talking post reproductive stages, right? We're getting past the green ring, past the internode movement, that kind of stuff, because that's really a cut off. You know, once we move into reproductive, that's a major cut off for a lot of our herbicides. So trying to talk about what's left after we get past those stages was really what I wanted to hit on.

[11:42] Jarrod Hardke

And keeping in mind a lot of our rice is moving into heading now. So we're, yeah, we're in this spot where we’ve got to address this right now. You know what's maybe still an option and what's absolutely not.

[11:55] Tommy Butts

Yeah and that's so, that's a good point, too, because once we get to, you know, full flag leaf emergence, heads are popping out everything else, man. We really want to be shut in everything down at that point. We don't want to be messing with too much at that point. So that's, that's great point. You want to catch that that window before everything's, you know, all those heads are popped out and everything else. And, you know, when we're in these later season things that, you know, again, there's very limited options. I'm just going to say that up front when we're talking the coffee bean, jointvetch stuff, you know that honestly, where we have the most options for, you know, because Permit and Permit Plus can still be used out there as long as we don't have some of the scenarios we're talking about right next to bean fields or we catch the right wind something else but that's both of those have a 48 day pre harvest interval. So that gives us a pretty good amount of time. I know Jarrod, you were kind of doing the math before the podcast. That's basically like right before heading, right? It was kind of when that normally lines out. Is that what you were saying?

[12:53] Jarrod Hardke

Well, when you kind of back it up, if you use the let's just call it 20% grain moisture, you know, approximately. I mean, you start backing up, well, okay. From there, ten days before that is roughly, you know, when we're draining, 25 days before that is when we're at 50% heading and I always have to specify. That's when 50% of main stem tillers are just beginning to push a head out. Just beginning. So when I say 50%, I don't mean we're saying headed as in there all the way out, 50% heading they're just beginning to push a head out. So there you’re at 35 days. So if you, if you're trying to get to 48 that's going to put you right about to the beginning of late boot, when flag leaves are just all the way out and you can see the collar on them that's, so, that's roughly your cut off. Obviously the 20% grain moisture is not when we harvest most of rice ,it’s just a little bit later. So, let's just say the very beginning of late boot, somewhere right in there that that's going to most often be our 48 day cut cutoff or any of these that we're talking about.

[13:59] Tommy Butts

Yeah. Okay. And so that's that's been for the Permit and Permit Plus. And you know, those two are really safe for our, for our rice out there. So if you're in that window, you know, you don't have to worry about injury at all. We did leave Gambit off this list. So Gambit also has a 48 day pre-harvest interval. But with that peak in there, we've just seen some oddball things every now and then and it gives it a little bit more potential for, for rice injury. And so we, we kind of want to avoid it for that. And then the other side of that, too, is Gambit has a pretty big plant back to some other, you know, crops. And so with these late seasons, we're definitely running into some of those, those plant back issues on that front too, where you don't have that Permit and Permit Plus. So if you're going to do it, you're going to go after some of these late season apps on coffee bean or jointvetch, I would stick with Permit, Permit Plus over Gambit at that point.

[14:50] Jarrod Hardke

And and I'll also go out one other kind of just agronomic slash economic can look at the necessity for some of these applications. Yeah, trust me I mean get in getting some black seed in your you know, in the truck that you're going to go delivered absolutely runs the risk of getting you knocked down a grade and there's a cost associated with that and if you you just start ballparking those costs if you end up getting, you know, one truck, you know, knocked down to grade three, something like that. And I'm ballparking, I'm not even scratching out on a napkin right now just in my head it's going to cost you about $500. Well, depending on just how bad it is out there, I see some of these fields getting sprayed late. Yes. They have some scattered coffee bean or indigo around the edges and I can make the argument in a lot of those – like you got to cut and open up the field anyway those go in one truck get run off and yeah that one may cost you $500, but the cost of spraying an entire 80 acre field is going to cost you a lot more than that $500 loss on that. So, you know, you can almost argue, yeah, just take that and run it off and that’s just is going to be what it is. And, and then again, we, we reduced any any injury risk potential, you know, on the field overall, flirting with the cut off timing and all that and probably saved money overall. Certainly at this just horrible, you know, pressure out there. Yeah, we're in a different conversation. But if you're worried about some scattered around, which it usually is outside levees and near that that may be the way to go that they were just going to eat that little bit of loss but really potentially save thousands of dollars overall by not making that application.

[16:44] Tommy Butts

Yeah, and I think that's going to be a major theme for our entire podcast today is think economically because there's a lot of these things where yeah, you can spray but you're just you're losing money, you're sending dollar bills out on that app and you're not going to get it ratooned. So the more we can think and remain like you're saying, yeah, the you're the better off you'll be really in the long run. Another option along those lines for for coffee beans specifically if you know you got hemp sesbania and not jointvetch you know Ultra Blazer is another option that is legal for some of these late season applications. That's also or that might be a 50 day PHI I think is what we said. But so basically the same as Permit, Permit Plus as far as that pre-harvest interval goes. I know the one thing we were talking about before though, the one warning to give there is you really kind of want to avoid the the flag leaf being fully, you know, fully out. Right. Fully developed. Yes. All of that Ultra Blazer, because otherwise you have the chance to burn it all off. And any time you burn off a flag leaf, that's not good news when it comes to yield.

[17:45] Jarrod Hardke

I know that that 50 day I mean, just kind of what we're talking about with the other ones, it's it's going to the PHI portion of it is going to coincide roughly with flag leaf getting all the way out. So that's the PHI. But yeah, beyond even that part of it, you know, our recommended timing is more up in the early, mid-boot. That flag leaf may be on its way out, but it's not all the way up and out, fully exposed to that Blazer application. And, you know, we get routine questions about anything that may burn that flag leaf whether it be drift from Liberty, a Blazer application fertilizer burn on flag leaves, a little bit of burned on a flag leaf is not very concerning to me like some tip burn stuff like that and I used, just because we see it, you know liberty's a pretty good example of of you know what happens when you burn that flag leaf well you really have to get fairly close to the burning it most of the way off to really measure some some yield loss. Having said, that the the earlier you do that to that flag we you know the greater the potential is there because that that flag leaf is still responsible for trying to feed that head very early on. So, yeah, I want to make sure I'm early and I'm not right there athe beginning of a late boot and I'm just going to light that flag leaf up completely with with a low volume spray with a lot of Blazer in it on a hot day that's just going to nuke.

[19:23] Tommy Butts

Probable with some crop oil or whatever else. Oh yeah. You know, an MSO, HSOC, whatever else is in there to light stuff up to. Yeah. It's just going to add to the burn, burn, burn.

[19:33] Jarrod Hardke

Oh yeah. Yeah. And I mean I understand, I mean if we're going to try to kill something and knock it out out there, especially larger stuff. Yeah. Well, I mean, we want to supe it up, but you're we're going to supe it up on the rice, too. And again, a risk reward, probably more of a revenge application, a lot of times, especially once you start knocking on the door to late, if you can catch in the early to mid-boot, flag leaf’s not all the way out, much less concerned about the the risk of some burn out there.

[20:00] Tommy Butts

Yeah. So that kind of hits on the black seed side of things as far as coffee bean and jointvetch options. So Permit, Permit Plus Ultra Blazer, those are kind of our options there. Another option, if you've got flat sedge problems out there that are creeping up on you. And I know I've had a lot of calls on the white margined stuff making its way across the state again and causing problems out there. You know, rice flatsedge still being a problem out there, that kind of thing. Basagran has actually no cutoff listed for rice, so Basagran is still an option to go out late. I would give somewhat of the same warning as we just did with Ultra Blazer though on that flag leaf because you know, Basagran can get hot at times. And again, we just talked about the adjuvants part when we start suping it up with who knows what. Right a crop oil, HSOC, MSO, there's just more potential there to cause burning on that flag leaf and then run into some issues there. So normally it shouldn't be a big issue. But again, I just throw that warning out there that I have heard a few complaints about Basagran burning off some leaves. And I'd hate to do a late season app on that and burn off our flag leaf to, yeah, that at least is an option for some of the flat sedges out there right now.

[21:12] Jarrod Hardke

And I'll say, you know, for that kind of late season and some of the ones some of the oddballs that are becoming unfortunately less oddball, you know, I have a little added concern with Basagran that we're we're leaning heavily on is one of our only options for that stuff. And you start talking late season and options on those particular weeds, I understand the goal is to melt them down and minimize lodging but their damage is done and that potential just further exposure to another application of Basagran, you know you're not going to kill it all. You're going to injure you're going to control some of it just to injure others, whatever that I'm not crazy about that exposure. We're not far from on some the one you mentioned you have a white margin in the umbrella that so to basically be sitting here going but we don't know what we're going to spray kill it when Basagran starts getting weak.

[22:06] Tommy Butts

Yeah. And I would definitely say you're not going to kill it with this late season app of Basagran. I just don't see any way you're going to kill it. I would. You know the place I would use this if I had to use. I know I've seen some pictures of the white margin where it's gotten because that gets up on top of the rice, you know, and it's going to take it all down. All right. There, it's still not great like you're talking about for resistance, evolution and things. But, man, if you don't try and at least burn that top off, it's going to take all that rice down and you ain't going to get any rice out of it. So those little situations where I would consider doing this late season shot of Basagran, is where, you know, this white margins up on top of it. You're not going to kill it, but hopefully you can at least burn the top out of it and make sure it doesn't take the rice down and you can get a combine through it. Then that's that's pretty much best case scenario on of an application of that this late.

[22:50] Jarrod Hardke

Yeah I'm with you there.

[22:53] Tommy Butts

So that kind of hits on the the broad leaves a hits on the the sedges a little bit you know grasses are always a big one. I get a lot of calls on now, too. Are there anything we can spray and try and stop seed production or kill it when it's this late? And unfortunately, there is just no options. I mean, this is this is the unfortunate answer. It's the easy answer for me to say, because there just is nothing. Right. It's it we're past the cutoff on all of those. It's basically that, you know, once we start getting joint movement, most of our grasses get cut off due to crop injury concerns. And at this point, kind of like you just mentioned, anyway, it's too late to really try and do anything. You know, the seed heads are all probably already a bunch of the seeds, probably already formed on a lot of that barnyard grass out there. You know, it's it's fixing to try and desiccate itself because it's reaching the end of its life cycle. It's pretty much to the point where we just got to live with what it was and not spend money where we don't need to spend money there on some of that stuff.

[23:50] Jarrod Hardke

Yeah. The only I've even, you know some little bit lighter plantings here, right. You know it's come up, I mean the the Beyond the Postscript question so so for those you know the cutoff is 14 days after panicle differentiation so or you know call it PI, green ring, you know that or we split hairs and some terminology you know what is that what's 14 days after? Well depending on the cultivar, half inch internode elongation can be 7 to 10 days. We usually use seven days as a generality, but we spend a lot of time measuring these things, for DD50  you know, part of my program, can be 7 to 10 days. So basically once you kind of get to a half inch, if that's what you're measuring, then you can really say, okay, I've got like 3 to 7 days after that that I'm still within that window. And again, that's still a long way before even late boot and heading that that cut off occurs so you can't you don't really have much room past half inch to to be confident that you're avoiding any injury potential or anything like that. But that's that's the latest those are going to go out to give us any suppression at all. And so for most the rice out there, we're way past that point. Those are gone. I just want to make sure we touched on those. So beyond the other product options, all the rest of them, we kissed them goodbye back at joint moment.

[25:17] Tommy Butts

Yeah. No, that's great. I'm glad you brought that up, because I've had a couple of calls on those, too. And like you said, basically it's where we're we don't have any paddles left on the creek we’re on. We're we're just, we're done. That's what it is for the year. So that was kind of the, the, the few things I wanted to hit on as far as the late season herbicide apps. I think that covers our main things there. So jumping from that into ratoon rice, I want to talk a little bit about that because I know, you know, it's not a very common practice in Arkansas, but this year, just with the weather, we've had some of those real early planting dates. We had a couple cultivars out there which seem to be really early maturing cultivars to that. There's some potential for some ratoon rice acres out there. So. Jarrod, I kind of just wanted to turn it over to you first. I guess before we talk about the weed control part in ratoon, you just want to hit on a few of that agronomic considerations, you know, things to look out for what yiel potential might be, you know, just some basics on that front.

[26:17] Jarrod Hardke

Our Oh, absolutely. So from a ratoon standpoint, yeah, it seems like once about every five years we get a reasonable shot at seeing some some ratoon production on some rice acres. And so we did have some of that late March to early April plantings this year that that were went ahead and were pushed on the flood in the early part of May you know got to four leaf or so and guys went in demand so there's there's potential that those get harvested the very early part of August no guarantees because you know once we kind of get into heading the temperature and humidity and all those things are going to play a role in in how that grain actually matures out and you know, how quickly will actually be ready to cut it. But let's let's work off the assumption that some of it's going to get there in the early part of August. So, you know, if we got in mind and that we're we're going to attempt to ratoon I mean, you kind of need to go in to the harvest of those fields with the mindset, okay, we're going to try to ratoon that. So if I'm going to do that, then I'm going to try to minimize my tracking of the field because all the rice stubble that I that I knocked down as a part of that is is for our climate. And we'll just say on average, the fall climate. That's not those streaks that they may pop out heads eventually, but you’ve laid them down and they're so far behind now, you're not going to make anything viable for us.

[27:47] Tommy Butts

Just to cut in, Jarrod. You know, so, so, you know, I talked to Connor Webster a little bit about ratoon down there in Louisiana and he mentioned that mowing and rolling stubble tend to be fairly common down there for that first crop growing in the ratoon. And like we discussed before, we just don't have that length of a of that secondary growing season for that to really be an option. So just why you were on that, I figured I'd mention that too you that, you know, even though that's common down in Louisiana, we probably can't get away with that up here. And we we need to just kind of roll into that that ratoon crop rather than trying to mow or roll that stubble and do something else with it. Just like you're saying, with everything else. It's just not going to be feasible necessarily for our what we've got left in a growing season. So I just want to throw that out there and that part.

[28:33] Jarrod Hardke

They get a, you know, a decent opportunity in when they get planting, you know, on their earlier stretch, you know, so get harvested a decent time. Absolutely. I mean, the more you can start back the regrowth closer to the base of the plant, the more yield potential there is. So when they get some their stuff cut really early them absolutely. Then the stubble rolling and make it come back from the base. I mean, there again, your potential goes way up. And then as they started drifting a little bit later in the harvest, they move into some of that flail mowing and their shooting for roughly like an eight inch or so, 8 to 10 inch I think, stubble height. Still trying to maximize production, but, you know, trying to uniform everything out, speaking very generally you know we're talking you know more you know, south Louisiana, you know, a lot of, you know, very flat ground, not very many levees, stuff like that. So they can that opens the door for them already, you know, to be able to minimize some of their other impacts and how they can do some of that rolling and mowing and stuff like that where we don't have enough season left to really chase that, I could argue that there's an opportunity to to maybe cut while we're harvesting at a slightly lower height. I mean, nobody wants to run a huge amount of residue through their machine. But if you're trying to match the miles ratoon potential in some of that and you could track getting a little bit lower just to give you a little bit more regrowth potential out of there. And so we can go that route. But you're trying to minimize, you know, keep it largely confined to the combine tracks. They're going through there. So you get a grain cart zigzagging all over the place, everywhere, everything, you know, knocking a lot more rice stubble that's just steadily reducing what you're really you know, your ratoon potential is out there. So if we're able to minimize that and then we can, you know, obviously get get right back in there as soon as we're out of there and try to push the crop along in the early part of August, it's reasonable to go after a urea application, say 100 pounds urea. Now you again go to the south, Louisiana example, and when they're really hourly, they'll put out 200 pounds urea and then start drifting down to 100 until finally they're now on the down at any time and and this is more off of our observations here, less less research. We don't even get much opportunity to research it because we don't get the conditions very often, but very early a 100 pound urea application could be good. As soon as you start moving into even the latter part of August, you may want to consider dropping that maybe to 50 pounds or maybe just a nothing. Again, the goal being the more nitrogen you put out there, the greater yield potential. But the longer you're going to drag out maturity and reduce the opportunity you may have to actually cut viable grain at the end. And we're playing a game with fall conditions. We've tried to take some planning date studies over the years where we've had an opportunity to get something cut pretty early. And and you know, put some fertilizer back on or not in some cases, played around with both ways when we've had a chance and then harvest it. And so a lot of years, even with no added urea, it seems reasonable that 35, 40 bushel yield potential, off of that is reasonable depending on your math and your operation. It may be that 20 bushel an acre is breakeven once you add back in, you know, the added combined path and a little extra waters and stuff like that. But that's, you know, again, 35, 40 bushel. If you start adding urea and you're actually earlier and a little bit more time, maybe that does go to 75, 80 plus bushel. The one thing from the little bit of research we've done that is just a big caveat is we haven't been able to fully capture that variable, that’s in there about the tracks and how much of the area, you know, we're actually losing some yield potential out there. But I do know that from other field level observations, conversations with growers, some of the numbers I'm throwing out there right now are very real. That's that's the kind of yields they have cut off of doing some of these things. So it does support a little bit of the research we've done, which is super minimal, to put it mildly. But that's that's kind of what we're looking at. And we just don't have much time to, I guess, for lack of a better term, to, to get cute with much of our agronomics. Hurry up and get it cut, if you can do it early, little bit of urea and get some water on it and go war again. Start getting really I guess you'd argue kind of past August 15th in there you need to start considering no additional nitrogen, just get some water back to it and let it take off and pop those other heads out.

[33:30] Tommy Butts

Well, I think so. Just kind of moving into the we control portions then of that, I think that's a great message is don't get cute because that's pretty much what it is on the weed control front, too. You know, there's just not a lot of options, first and foremost, and I should say I do need to say a thank you to Dr. Connor Webster down there at LSU, because I gave him a, I shot him a couple texts last week just to ask him a few questions on this since they deal with it a whole lot more. And he was great at responding and giving me some, some input. So thanks to Connor out there, but you know, there's just not a lot of options in ratoon rice and in general, you know, hopefully we shouldn't need a lot of options at this point in the year. You know, we're still going to have some heat and stuff could germinate, but there's so much probably residue left from that first crop, it should basically be acting almost like a cover crop, suppressing weeds from germinating and then emerging because they just don't want to be coming out in that environment, not making it through their life cycle. Right. They don't want to use their chance at life to reproduce seed and to not make it there. So they're not going to give it a go, probably. So hopefully there shouldn’t be a whole lot of weeds in general anyway. Now, if you do get in the boat where you need something, again, there's very few herbicide options that are truly labeled for ratoon rice. And one of the notes we wanted to make clear was there's a lot of herbicides that don't that are labeled for rice that don't say anything at all about ratoon ground. And that gets into a little bit of a gray area where, you know, is it labeled or is it not labeled? And what we've kind of come to the conclusion of is is like if it doesn't say it, you know, you're probably on your own if something were to go wrong, right? If it doesn't explicitly say you can use this in ratoon rice, you're probably kind of out on an island if you would happen to use that other herbicide. So, so the few that are actually, truly label that say you can apply this in a ratoon rice crop include 2,4-D,  Basagran, Grandstand and Grasp. And that's pretty much the exhaustive list that Connor had in his mind that were, and I've checked a few other labels and I didn't see much else either that was truly label for a two. So so there are not a lot of options there. Right. And they're mainly almost broadleaf herbicides when we're talking 2,4-D, Basagran and Grandstand. You know, broadleaves or sedges, we could maybe get some things there. Grasp probably would help us a little bit on the grass front if for some reason we have some late season grass emergence come up through all that that residue, but again, very limited options. And so we're just going to kind of have to, you know, play the game that we're dealt there, play the hand that we're dealt there. And again, it goes back to what we discussed anyway and even what, you were mentioning, Jarrod, about some of the nitrogen stuff is play the economics, watch it from an economic standpoint because if we push the nitrogen and we can't harvest it, well we just spent money on fertilizer that we don't get to use if we spend money on a herbicide application and we don't really need it because there's only scattered weeds, we're just wasted money, you know. So play the ratoon rice crop just like everything else, you know, think about the economics, whether we're applying fertilizer, spraying weeds, whatever else. Make sure to consider that it's actually going to be a profitable expense for us.

[36:36] Jarrod Hardke

Yeah, and I'll, I'll throw out there on, you know, we're just talking here generally. You know what we should do, not do, that stuff. But I also want to throw out there before I forget if you got a field that you think has a pretty good amount of sheath blight or Cercospora pressure, you may not want to ratoon that field. It's only going to get worse. And that may not only limit your yield potential on that, but certainly it's going to increase the amount of pressure that's there for the future. Especially if you start talking sheath blight, that's Rhizoctonia if it’s going to be beans next year. That's going to ramp up the potential for aerial blight in the beans and you know, and on we go, stuff like that. So there's stuff that can really limit your potential. And while there is some fungicide labeling for those things, we're not that in tune with that in the timings and what's actually going to be that affective here, because we don't do this. We don't really ratoon much ever. So if I'm seeing that kind of questionable scenario, I'm probably not pushing that field.

[37:46] Tommy Butts

No. And I so I agree with that too, Jarrod. And then one of the other things I wanted to hit on too, because I know they'll be questions on it. We talked about the post emergence herbicide options there. You know what a residual herbicides look like. Could we throw out, you know, a shot of Command and then not have to apply anything else or something along those lines and really, you know, again, when I was talking to Connor, it's a gray area for some of those because they're not necessarily truly labeled like Command and Facet, say. And then on top of it, we already talked about how much residue is left there. There's probably a real low likelihood that you're going to be able to get those herbicides, you know, to the soil and get them activated. You're probably not going to have as big of a normal flush of weeds like we deal with in the spring. And so you're kind of using a residual application for probably not a lot of, you know, weeds that are going to germinate, and so it's kind of, you know, again, economically, is it really worth it to do that? So I really wouldn't think about trying to throw out residuals out there. You also mentioned, you know, trying to push the water back on it kind of right away. Well, again, you know, if you kind of got water out there as though the residual is really going to help? So, again, it's kind of hit or miss. We probably don't have a lot of great data on it. But just generally speaking, thinking through it logically, I don't think those residual herbicides are going to be a great option either. So I'd honestly just stick with seeing what happens if you need something. You know, we listed off those four different herbicides and consider that and just go from there, roll the dice and see what happens kind of thing. So that's kind of where we are.

[39:17] Jarrod Hardke

Yeah, I don’t think there’s much utility for spraying much else.

[39:20] Tommy Butts

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's, well especially with that with the yield potential you're talking about, you know, the economics gets pretty thin in a hurry. Let's get the most we can out of the profitability and not worry about trying to be, you know, completely clean for some reason if we just have a few escapes kind of thing.

[39:37] Jarrod Hardke

Yep.

[39:40] Tommy Butts

With that I think that basically hits on what I wanted to hit on on Ratoon as well. Jarrod, did you have any other end of the year tips you wanted to give people? While we're starting to move into this real, you know, end of season type stuff.

[39:53] Jarrod Hardke

No, just from here on real as we start getting to rice heading only bad things can happen from here on out. Watching out for stink bugs I know everybody hopefully we've seen everywhere, I mean the you know, we did get a Section 18 for Endigo ZCX to give us another option for rice stink bug control. You know again that's an option you tend to use out there as well. You can get your hands on it, but pyrethroids still not working as well. If you do use Endigo ZCX please remember to report what you use that's, that's kind of critical for us getting Section 18s in the future, things like that. We need to report accurately what we're actually using. And really from here, yeah, we're just hoping the weather just kind of smooths on out for the most part, I think we've covered most of the late season stuff. I've been really, you know, worried about that, that we could result in some crop injury from things like that. So I'm hoping for a really nice next month.

[41:01] Tommy Butts

That's right. I'm glad we're finally hitting the point where we're kind of on the downslope. And, and like you said, there's it. It is what it is almost at this point. And so it's just kind of riding out the storm, hopefully, and that we don't have too many bad storms come through here. 

[41:17] Jarrod Hardke

Absolutely.

[41:18] Tommy Butts

Yeah. So with that, you know, the last few things I always like to mention on our podcast series, you know, first of foremost, as far as getting information from us, please feel free to check out our website to get some updated information there. You know, if you still haven't, the MP44 is still pretty worthwhile. Go check that out, go download it from online, get it from your county office, that kind of thing. This fall, you know, we'll be working again on updating that whole thing with all the latest information we got from research trial this year. We'll have a new copy for you next year, so be prepared for that. Sign up for our texting service offer for our weeds group. It's text weeds to 501-300-8883. If you want to join Jarrod’s rice list, you just text rice to that same phone number so you can join both of our text lists that way and then as always, just feel free to get a hold of us with any with any questions, you know, give us an email, a text, a call whatever. We'll get back to you on there. Jarrod, have any extra websites or anything you wanted to mention.

[42:20] Jarrod Hardke

No, that that's all the same good stuff, everything. Just just look for rice. You'll find us.

[42:27] Tommy Butts

Perfect. Well, thank you all for all for listening again. Oh, I should also say thank you to all our funding providers again as well. So, you know, the Rice Promotion Board, the USDA for different funds there, industry collaborators, all that kind of stuff. Thank you for continually supporting our programs for both research and extension activities. That helps a great deal. And thank you to the listeners again for continuing to follow along in our Weeds AR Wild podcast and get information from us. And for all the kind words, when you let us know that you like the podcast series and you’re listening and then everything else too. I always like hearing that, so that's great to hear. So with that..

[43:04] Jarrod Hardke

Yeah, one last thing before we forget. And I put this in Rice Update the other day, but reminder that Rice Field Day at Stuttgart is Thursday, August 3rd. The Pine Tree Field Day, which I have some rice and soybean, I believe is Thursday, August 10th. And then we're doing the Rice College for 2023 on Wednesday, August 16th at Stuttgart at the Rice Research and Extension Center. That was a registration only, pay deal. If you check any of the recent Rice updates, got the link to get to that and that stuff. But anyway, a few upcoming field days, if you want to see what's going on, kind of things we're working on. Visit with us a little bit and certainly the Rice College, being a boots on get out and stuff, a little bit different layer to a traditional field day there so stuff to put on your calendar.

[43:53] Tommy Butts

Yeah I'm glad you mentioned that. Come on out and see us. So that'd be great. So thank you all for listening to another episode of The Weeds AR Wild podcast and just finish up. Thanks for joining us for this episode of The Weeds AR Wild podcast series on Arkansas Row Crops Radio.

[44:10] Intro/Outro

Arkansas Row Crops Radio is a production of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. For more information, please contact your local county extension agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.