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Thoughts on Rice
This podcast is for growers, PCAs, consultants, and other industry professionals in the California rice industry. We'll primarily be focusing on the Sacramento Valley and Delta Region of California. The UCCE Rice Farm Advisors aim to deliver extension information relating to the California rice industry.
Find out more about UCCE and California rice here!
Thoughts on Rice
New product offerings in the rice market (Pt. 1)
Together, the UCCE Farm Advisors seek to provide relevant, topical research-backed information relating to CA rice production. Sarah Marsh Janish sits down with Sharon Bell, Ashley McWilliams, and Mike Martin, representatives from UPL, Wilbur-Ellis, and Valent USA, to discuss some of the latest developments in the rice chemical market.
Mention of an agrichemical does not constitute a recommendation, merely the sharing of research findings. Always follow the label. The label is the law. Find out more at ipm.ucanr.edu.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of California. The material and information presented here is for general purposes only. The "University of California" name and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.
UCCE Upcoming Events
2025 Annual Winter Rice Grower Meetings
Winter Grower Meeting Agenda (the agenda for all meetings will be the same)
1. Woodland Meeting
- Date: February 10th, 8:00 AM;
- Location: Yolo County Farm Bureau, 69 W Kentucky Ave, Woodland
2. Richvale Meeting
- Date: February 12th, 8:00 AM;
- Location: Evangelical Church, 5219 Church St, Richvale
3. Willows Meeting
- Date: February 12th, 1:00 PM;
- Location: Glenn County Office of Education, 311 South Villa Ave, Willows
4. Colusa Meeting
- Date: February 13th, 8:00 AM;
- Location: CIP Conference Room, 100 Sunrise Blvd., Colusa
5. Yuba City Meeting
- Date: February 13th, 1:00 PM;
- Location: Veterans Hall, 1425 Veterans Memorial Cir, Yuba City
Other Resources
UC ANR is an equal opportunity provider and employer
Hello and welcome to Thoughts on Rice, a podcast hosted by the University of California Cooperative Extension Rice Advisors. I'm one of your hosts, Sarah Marchionish, and I'm a rice farm advisor for Colusa and Yolo counties.
SPEAKER_07:I'm Whitney from the forest. I'm the Cooperative Extension Rice Advisor for Sutter, Yuba, Placer, and Sacramento counties.
SPEAKER_01:My name is Luis Espino. I'm the Rice Farming Systems Advisor for Butte and Glynn counties. I'm Michelle Leinfelder-Miles.
SPEAKER_02:I'm a farm advisor in the Delta region. I work on all sorts of field crops, grains and forages, but one of those is rice. And the counties that I cover are San Joaquin, Sacramento, Yolo-Solano, and Contra Costa counties.
SPEAKER_04:Together, the UCCE Rice Farm Advisors seek to provide relevant, topical, research-backed information relating to California rice production. Today, we've got a bit of a different show for you here today over at Thoughts on Rice podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. of research findings. Always follow the label. The label is the law. Find out more at Hi, Sharon.
SPEAKER_05:but I am excited to be a part of this ever-changing industry.
SPEAKER_04:Fantastic. And I mean, you've got a little bit of a leg up as I understand it. You're local to the Sac Valley, so you're familiar with the rice in the industry and you know how important rice is to California.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. Yeah. Born and raised in Yuba City, so I'm surrounded by rice every direction.
SPEAKER_04:Perfect. We like to hear that. So Sharon, just real quick, can you give me a background on what products your company offers in the rice market? And then I mean, like established products that UPL has been working with for throughout the last two decades or so.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so our biggest products would be our propanil brands, which are Super Wham and Stam. Outside of that, we do have LambdaCy and Dimilin, so some insecticides. We also have Londac, but for sure, Super Wham and Stam would be our biggest known products to the rice industry.
SPEAKER_04:Fantastic. So those are the established products. Let's focus on what What's new? What's coming down the pipeline? What are we looking for in the 2025 season?
SPEAKER_05:Yes. So UPL, we are super excited to be bringing Vaxa plant to the rice industry. We currently have this. It's a biofungicide. We currently have it registered here in California on grapes and lettuce. However, we are looking at a label expansion, hopefully getting that approved in March. So it will be coming. That timeline could vary depending on how soon DPR can get it approved. But our late timeline, like I said, is March of 2025, so a couple months from now. Again, it is a biofungicide, so the active ingredient is laminarin. The mode of action, it's a FRAC P4, and it's the only compound in that FRAC group. Its activity is preventative and systemic, so it has both SAR and ISR activity, so breaking that down, that means systemic acquired resistance as well as induced systemic resistance. So if you want me to go a little bit more in depth, I can, but we can just keep it high level.
SPEAKER_04:If you have the time, I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So looking at the activity of it, basically there's three ways that it helps the plant fight off the pathogens. And that includes, it reinforces the cell walls. So that helps prevent the infection from even happening in the first place. It also produces antimicrobial compounds, as well as PR proteins, which have the plant defense characteristics. So antifungal We kind of equate it to going out and getting the flu shot. It's going to help your body fight off the disease or the pathogens to prevent the infection. All right, so besides having the plant pathogen protection, we also have seen secondary plant benefits come from it. So like I said, it's currently registered on grapes and in grapes, we've seen an increase in the bricks as well as fruit firmness, but looking at it more so for rice, we've seen an increase in yield. So we've seen this, if you put it on later in the season, say you throw it in with your propanil timing, There's an increase in yield from that. We've done it across the Sacramento Valley. One of the 20-acre demo plots that we've seen actually won the rice yield contest for that area. So it's an exciting boost to your yield, as well as getting the plant defense turned on as well to fight off the pathogens.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that sounds really interesting. So let's talk about use rate and when to apply. You mentioned with propanil, so that gives us kind of an idea.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so it's season-long use. You can throw it in with your fungicide timings, again, to kind of enhance the activity of your fungicide that you're using. But it takes a free ride with whatever. So if you want to throw it in with your propanil, that's when you're going to see your yield boost, so later in the season. But again, it takes a free ride and you can put it in with whatever you want. And the use rate is 14 fluid ounces.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. So liquid then?
SPEAKER_05:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. Are there any special cautions or licenses that people need to have for this?
SPEAKER_05:There's no cautions or use anything specific to worry about here.
SPEAKER_04:Fantastic. And you already kind of mentioned that you're hoping to get DPR sign off in March?
SPEAKER_05:Correct. March is our hopeful, our timeline for now.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. And so if that happens, it could be available this season, but probably the latest, maybe next season?
SPEAKER_05:Correct.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, it's hard to say with DPR, but.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Yep. So hopefully this season, but fingers crossed this season. If not, let's hope for next season.
SPEAKER_04:So Sharon, I'm going to ask you here. Is there anything else you want to share with us before we wrap up?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So if you guys have any questions specifically about Vaxaplant or any other products in the UPL portfolio, you can find us online or you can reach out to me directly. My phone number is 530-930-370 Or my email is sharon.bell at upl-ltd.com.
SPEAKER_04:Fantastic. Sharon, thank you so much for being here today. And I think we'll have you back on again. So don't consider this your last call. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Well, thank you for inviting us and wanting to hear more about UPL. All right. Great. Thanks. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04:Hi, Ashley. Thank you for being here today. Ashley McWilliams is from Wilbur Ellis, and I've asked you here today to talk a little bit about the Wilbur Ellis portfolio of offerings. Thanks for being here, Ashley. Of course. Thanks for having me on, Sarah. Now, I'd like to start off with some questions about you, your information concerning your job title, your area of coverage, and how long you've been working with Rice Chemicals.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I'm a PCA and CCA for, as you said, for Wilbur Ellis, covering Colusa, Sutter, and Yolo counties I've been working in this position for six years, which I've been involved in rice for all those six years, and probably as far as the chemical side, the last four years, more deeply involved.
SPEAKER_04:This is more on a personal note, but Ashley's a PCA for several of the growers that I work with, and they all speak very highly of her. So it's a real treat for us to have her on today. So Ashley, can you tell me a bit about the established products that Wilbur Ellis offers in the rice market?
SPEAKER_03:As far as the main products, Products for Obralus currently and kind of going for the near future is Serrano. Everybody's aware of Serrano. But I mean, even though this product is 20 years old, I do think we are seeing a comeback with it, especially in a program approach with some of our newer chemistries that have come on the line, like the Cliffhanger and the Zembu. And as it still has activity on sprangletop and watergrass in a lot of areas.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And that's kind of rare when it comes to our rice herbicides, at least in today's day and age when we're seeing resistance cropping up. Let's talk about Serrano a little bit. Now, can you talk to me a bit about like the mode of action of Serrano and the activity that we see on these specific weeds?
SPEAKER_03:Well, Serrano is, like I said, I wish I could have John Heyer on here with you as he's the one that developed this product and can speak a lot more to the mode of action. But it is, as everybody knows, it's a pre-emergent herbicide, goes on day of seeding. It's going to cause some bleaching of the rice as well the weeds. And so it's working on the seeds in the soil on a pre-emergent basis, which is why we can see those later flushes of sprangletop that escape that serrano once it's basically gone after the first couple of weeks after application. Serrano does also have post-emergent activity working both in the soil and foliar on small weeds only. Serrano is extremely soluble, so it moves very well in the water as it binds to the soil for excellent coverage.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. And Serrano's, I guess, chemical name for that is clomosome. So we see that pigment inhibition in that bleaching action, especially early in the season. When we see Serrano used in a program of perhaps, like you mentioned, Serrano and Zembu together, is there anything that you'd like to caution growers about in terms of antagonistic action or phytotoxicity on the rice itself?
SPEAKER_03:I'm not... I haven't used it personally like with Zimbu. I have used it in conjunction with Butte. I mean, it's just, you know, knowing that there's potential phytotoxic effects with both, with multiple chemistries, just be aware of each chemistry and how it acts on the rice, especially, you know, putting Serrano on, deaceting, letting it kind of get out of the ground before you come back with something like Butte. So it kind of gets going and definitely want to watch out for heat. It's going to be, you know, 95 degrees or more. Just be cautious about that. about putting Serrano on, you know, during a heat event, you could see worse, worse problems.
SPEAKER_04:And Serrano, what's a typical use rate that we're seeing for
SPEAKER_03:that? I'd say 10 to 12 pounds is kind of, you know, I've seen guys try to cut it back to eight pounds when putting it on with Butte. And I still feel like going that at least 10 pound rate, even when you're using in conjunction with these other herbicides, because the sprangletop and watertrass are getting tough. So at least a minimum that 10 pound rate.
SPEAKER_04:We were actually at a meeting earlier today talking about special That's correct, Sarah. No, it doesn't.
SPEAKER_03:There's no NOI that's required. There's no watch out for things like peaches and prunes or walnuts, especially being in that granular form. Less of a concern with surrounding crops when putting on Serrano.
SPEAKER_04:It's good to keep a chemical like this as you mentioned. mentioned, we've had in the portfolio for several years now, and it's still exhibiting some pretty good activity on the pests that it's targeting. We don't often see that kind of longevity in a herbicide, at least in our rice system. So it's good to have an old reliable there in the toolbox when you need it. Yeah, for sure. All right, Ashley, thank you for talking about Serrano. Is there any upcoming event or program that you'd like to mention that will else is putting on.
SPEAKER_03:We do have up north out of our Willows and Ordbren branch, the guys up there really do put on a really good rice meeting. And they're going to be really mad at me because I don't know the date. But it's normally in sometime in March, I think around middle to end of March. And that's at the Veterans Hall in Willows. We could maybe could follow up with you on that and put something in the notes. But yeah, outside of that, we just wrapped up our tree grower tree meetings this past week that we offer to our growers. Outside of that, we're just getting ready to get out in the field and get a season going.
SPEAKER_04:Just kind of raring to put on the hip boots, huh?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Ashley, would you mind giving us a contact number for people who have questions about Wilbur Ellis?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, for sure. Our local Colusa branch here, the phone number is 530-458-5831.
SPEAKER_04:Perfect. Thanks. And so if I have questions, I can call up that office and I can ask for Ashley, right?
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:Well, thanks again, Ashley. Really appreciate this and we'll see you out in the field. Of course. Thanks, Sarah. Appreciate it. I am fortunate enough to talk with Mike Martin here from Valent. And so, Mike, if you wouldn't mind giving us some information about yourself, your job title, your area of coverage, and how long you've been working with Rice Chemicals.
SPEAKER_06:So, yeah, I'm Mike Martin with ValentUSA. I am the Field Market Development Specialist for Northern California, so essentially like Merced North. So I pretty much have all the rice in California. I'd say I've been working with rice products off and on since I started with Valent 18 years ago. Started in sales, had a little bit of rice in the Delta, and then went into marketing. a couple of years into marketing, I picked up the whole rice herbicide portfolio for the US. So I got some exposure to the Mid-South and California as well. And then I kind of was away from it for a couple of years in another position and came back to the field. So It seems like every time I've come back, I've had to learn more, you know, new products coming in, products that have been put by the wayside due to resistance and whatnot. So you miss a couple of years, you miss a lot with rice.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely, especially in California.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Well, Mike, thanks for that introduction. Can you tell me about some of the products that Valent USA offers in the rice market? And by with this, I mean, maybe the already established products that are pretty household names.
SPEAKER_06:So currently, we have first off is the thiobancarb-containing group of products, so that would be Abolish, Blair Ultramax, and League MVP, which also has imbazosulfur, sorry, Brain Bubble. So yeah, we have those products, and then we also have Regimen, and all those have been around for quite a long time. The thiobancarb is a resistance group 15, which the label still says group 8, but they did actually collapse those group 8 into 15 apparently a few years ago. Those products are mainly targeting sprangletop, smallflower. The League MVP picks up more broadleaf and sedge products like Umbrella Plant, Red Stem. Yeah, those are kind of like the foundation products. The regimen is more for cleaning up water grass and some broadleaf weeds as well. We also do have a couple of insecticides. First is Zentari, which is a bacillus product. It's Bt. aizawa, and that's for targeting armyworms. We also have Belay, which is clothianidin, which is a neonicotinoid, and that's to target rice water weevil. We also have Pro-J. which is a plant growth regulator. It is labeled on rice, and it's kind of fallen out of favor more recently, but we're starting to see some renewed interest in that as far as treating seed to get a really good, strong, healthy start, kind of giving the rice a head start on weeds. So we'll see how there's some trial going out this year, and we'll see how people use it and how it performs.
SPEAKER_04:Great, thanks for giving that background on the foundational products. Now, let's talk about what's new. What's coming down the pipeline from Valent that we should expect to see on the rice market in the next year coming seasons?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, so we had the rice meetings this week in several locations, and I mentioned that we have a 2EE coming for Abolish. It's Abolish plus Propanil, just giving specific use directions. It's certainly legal make that tank mix now. People have been doing it, but we're hoping to get that EEE out published pretty soon here. It's really just kind of a stamp of approval saying that we endorse this use pattern and we believe it's efficacious. So we've got that coming. Regiment has been a dry, water-soluble pack since day one. This coming year, we're going to be releasing Regiment EZ, which is a liquid formulation. So that's going to give a little bit more flexibility on, you know, on the The load size, because like the water-soluble packets, you're locked into increments of two ounces, whereas the liquid will be a very concentrated, low-use-rate product that will give more flexibility on load size. And then there was a press release about 10 days ago that we've announced basically a new development agreement with Kumeyaay for a new active ingredient called finquinotrione. The trade name is Afida, and it's an HPPD inhibitor. So this will be a new active ingredient in rice, primarily to target broadleaf and sedges. Having said that, it's going to be quite a ways out. We're probably talking, depending on how the regulatory schedule goes, probably 7 to 10 years.
SPEAKER_04:That makes sense. That's about how long those things usually take, as far as I understand.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, people have been hearing rumors and all that. It's good that it's out now that we're doing this development. But yeah, it's going to be a while.
SPEAKER_04:I am particularly excited about that liquid formulation of regimen, because I think you mentioned this in one of the meetings earlier. Before, when you had the packets, you had to basically find a space to use all that product. But now it seems like the growers and PCAs are going to have a lot more flexibility with making their applications Yeah,
SPEAKER_06:we've been selling it for a couple years now in the Mid-South and it's performing well. It's not going to be any better or worse. From what I've seen, all the trials I've looked at, it's pretty much identical performance across the board. Good to hear. With
SPEAKER_04:this new lineup of items coming down, the 2EE label on the Abolish EC, the liquid form of regimen, is there any special cautions or licenses or considerations to be taken into consideration for those who are going to implement this into their programs?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, no, the regiment, there'll be nothing different. We still will have the same adjuvant. There's a separate document that's in the adjuvants that we've tested and approved to go along with the regiment. That'll be the same as the dry. I mean, with thiobend carb and regiment both, there's county conditions, there's buffer zones, water hold restrictions, and you really have to comb through the labels to understand it all. And you also have to, it With the thiobend carb, there's mandatory thiobend carb training. With the regiment, the main concern is drift to sensitive crops, which a long time ago, everything was rice up north, but now we've got every crop you can imagine. So, you know, tree nuts and fruit and all that are very sensitive to regiments. You have to mind the buffer restrictions, but we also do a stewardship program where we certify aircraft. Any aircraft that's going to apply regiment needs to be recertified every three years. Sometimes um, aerial applicators will bring their planes in more often if they change something or whatever, but, uh, that's just to really, you know, we do a thorough test of the spray pattern and make sure that they're getting the least amount of drift as possible. So in the past, we've, we've also used a dry, uh, blank material to test the aircraft. And we've, we've also tested more recently with the liquid to just see if they, you know, if there's any difference in drift or anything like that. And, uh, They seem equal, if anything. Maybe the liquid's a little bit less prone to drift, but I'm not sure if we're willing to make that statement. I think it's just, at worst, it's the same.
SPEAKER_04:Got it. Yeah. Okay. And so let's talk about availability. Just to reaffirm this, the liquid form of regiment available 2025 season and abolish EC that to W label season 2025, right?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I believe both will be in place by the youth season. Since the abolish is just a EEE, it doesn't actually need to be approved by DPR. It's really one of the final stages of approving internally with our regulatory department. And then when it comes to the regiment EZ, I believe that that will be well before the youth season as well. Unless anything pops up unexpected, it should be good to go.
SPEAKER_04:Great. Thank you. And you already kind of mentioned this. I heard you talk at the Corteva herbicide meetings this past week and then at CWSS the week before. Are you doing any more info meetings or upcoming events in the next couple of weeks or months or so?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it's actually been kind of a meeting marathon. So yes, we had the meetings last week, this week. But also next Tuesday, the 4th, We will have a rice meeting at Colusa Casino. And so that will begin at noon with lunch, and then we'll have a product presentation lineup. And that is specifically for rice. And then we will also have one later. We'll have one on March 20th, and that will be at Sierra Nevada Brewing. Same sort of deal. We'll start with lunch and then have product presentations. um beyond that uh we we will have the aerial certification uh probably in march you know it's if the thing is with that thing with that uh event is that it's so weather dependent um between wind and planes being available and all that it's kind of a circus to manage but um probably probably mid-march is my guess
SPEAKER_04:Thanks for that information on the upcoming events, Mike. We'll be sure to find links to that and link them in the show notes for anybody who's interested. And so with that, we've kind of come to the end of our chat here today. Is there a place that people can go for more information about Valent or the products or even to contact you with any more questions?
SPEAKER_06:Sure. Valent.com. We have a really nice, nicely updated webpage and easy to navigate. We do have sections by crop, so you can click on rice or whatever else may suit you. And I can be contacted directly at mike.martin at Valent if anyone has questions. Also, I support Christina Madden. She's the sales rep in Northern California who covers rice, so she can be contacted as well. As far as the events coming up, the meetings, those are all out there on social media. Just Google it, valent rice meetings, and they'll pop up.
SPEAKER_04:Great. Thank you so much, Mike. We really appreciate you coming on today.
SPEAKER_06:Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04:We have a few upcoming rice meetings in the new year. As you know, we'll be having our rice winter grower meetings in February. And so we have a series of meetings. They all have the same agenda. Don't go to every single meeting. You'll be awfully bored. But pick one. Pick the one that's closest to you or most convenient to you and attend that one. So the first one will be the woodland meeting, which will take place February 10th at 8 a.m. The location for that will be the The second meeting will be the Richvale meeting, which will take place February 12th at 8 a.m. The location of that is the Richvale Evangelical Church. The Willows meeting will be that same day, February 12th at 1 p.m., and that location will be the Glen County Office of Education. The Colusa meeting will take place February 13th at 8 a.m. in the CIP conference room, and the Yuba City meeting will take place that same day again, February 13th at 1 p.m., and that'll be in the Veterans Hall. For more information about meeting times and locations or addresses and agendas, please feel free to look at our resources online. That'll include the UC Rice blog and the UC Agronomy website, or feel free to call your local Extension Office for more information. In terms of other resources that you might take advantage of, you can also look at our newsletters, which include Rice Briefs, which covers Colusa Yolo, Rice Notes, which covers Yuba Sutter, Rice Leaf, which covers Butte and Glen, and Field Notes, which takes care of rice in the Delta region of California.
UNKNOWN:Music
SPEAKER_04:Thanks for listening to We're also experimenting with polls on Spotify. So if you're listening on Spotify, you might have an option to answer some of those questions and we might be able to talk about that on the air. You can also email us with any comments, questions, or concerns at thoughtsonrice at ucdavis.edu. We're glad to have you here for season two of the Thoughts on Rice podcast. And remember, like the growers like to have a rice life. Mention of an agrochemical does not constitute a recommendation, merely the sharing of research findings. Always follow the label. The label is the law. Find out more at ipm.ucanr.edu. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of California. The material and information presented here is for general purposes only. The University of California name and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product or service.
