Recently, there have been several rice straw bale fires and there could be more. CALFIRE suspects the cause is the higher moisture in the straw at the time of baling due to the lack of north winds during harvest and baling.
The annual Rice Field Day will be Wednesday, August 31, 2022, at the Rice Experiment Station (RES), Biggs, California. We cordially invite you and your associates to join us for this event.
I have been getting several messages about off-type plants that are starting to head. They are taller, paler, and could be confused with watergrass. Some of them have a flag leaf that is yellow and stands out. These plants are most likely infected with bakanae.
We have recently produced a series of videos on weedy rice identification in California. Each video is biotype-specific. Our UC Rice YouTube Channel also has many other recordings from our virtual meetings and webinars.