EASTERN ARKANSAS — Officials with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture say planted rice acreage is down, which follows a recent trend seen with the crop.
“We are steadily dropping in our acreage intentions at this point. That’s where I alluded to the 70 percent, we’re north of 70 percent planted progress,” said Jarrod Hardke, Extension Rice Agronomist for the University of Arkansas. “As I’ve reminded a few people in the last week or so, it’s all relative about what that’s 70 percent of because there’s a tendency as some of these events are happening, we’re technically becoming a higher percent planted because of the acres that are going to get planted are going down.
“We’re going from way back in the winter and even to the March prospective plantings report saying that we could plant 1.4 million or so acres of rice and be similar to the previous two years,” he continued. “There for me were quite a few things… that said we probably weren’t going to get there when the dust settled.”
Hardke said the recent flooding event did not help.
“We’re looking now at a best case potentially of down to 1.2 million acres so take 200,000 off the early expectations,” he said. “Again, we’re not done. We’re turning the door into May with more rain chances and what happens from here, it’s getting on the later side and, again, fields still flooded.
“We’re continually creeping south from here,” Hardke added. “I’m pretty confident. Draw a circle around that 1.2 million because, technically, if things got great for the next two weeks, maybe we get in a little more than that. Just as easily come in a little under that number.”
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