Fayetteville, Arkansa
February 13, 2003
- By Fred Miller, Science Editor
- Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station
- fmiller@uark.edu
-
- Fifty-two percent of the rice grown in the Arkansas in
2002 was of varieties developed in the University of Arkansas
Division of Agriculture's rice variety improvement program,
according to data from the DD50 program.
-
- "Arkansas farmers produce more than 40 percent of the rice
grown in the United States under production conditions that
differ from those in other rice-growing areas," said Karen
Moldenhauer, rice breeder for the Arkansas Agricultural
Experiment Station. "Arkansas rice producers depend on a
breeding program that provides a progression of improved
varieties to meet the challenges of changing conditions in
their fields and in the marketplace for rice."
-
- Recent Arkansas varieties that meet these challenges
include Ahrent, released in 2001, and Wells, released in 1999.
Francis, a new high-yielding, long-grain rice variety, was
grown by seed producers in 2002 and registered seed will be
available to producers this year. Certified Francis seed will
be widely available in 2004.
-
- "Francis, sets new standards for yields," Moldenhauer
said. "It averaged 220 bushels an acre over three years in the
Uniform Rice Regional Nursery."
-
- Arkansas rice producers provide check-off funds
administered by the Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board
to help support the rice breeding program, conducted by
Arkansas scientists in cooperation with researchers in other
states and the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
-
- Twelve varieties have been released from the Arkansas
breeding program since check-of funding began in 1980.
-
- "Each variety comes with management recommendations
developed through research on plant nutrients, diseases,
insect pests, weeds and other areas," Moldenhauer said.
"Genetic improvement in disease resistance, plant types, grain
and milling yields, quality and other traits have helped
increase yield and grain quality while controlling production
costs.
-
- "In 1980 the average rough rice yield in Arkansas was only
4,110 pounds per acre," she said. "Variety improvements helped
raise that yield to a record high of 6,450 pounds per acre in
2002."
-
- Moldenhauer calculated that this 2,340 pound-per-acre
yield increase resulted in a $91 per acre increase in rice
income. That's a total of $140 million for the 1.54 million
acres of Arkansas rice grown in 2002, of which some $73
million is attributed to new Arkansas varieties.
-
- For these calculations, Moldenhauer used data from the
DD50 program, an Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service
program that provides decision management aids based on
emergence date, the variety planted, and current temperature
information.
-
- "Public varieties still provide more than 95 percent of
the varieties in the U.S., and about the same in Arkansas,"
she said. "Commercial rice varieties are limited and Arkansas
rice producers count on a long-standing public breeding
program to sustain the nation's leading rice production."
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