State rice crop struggled through tough crop year

STONEVILLE, Miss. -- Harvest ended a year of ups and downs for Mississippi’s rice producers, with acreage up but average yield down because of numerous challenges.

Nearly all of the state’s rice crop was harvested by late September. Mississippi growers harvested about 156,000 acres of rice this year, up about 25,000 acres from 2024.

Will Eubank, rice specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said the year began with growers unsure if they would even receive the seed needed to plant the rice crop. Eubank works at MSU’s Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville.

“Shortages in seed production, mainly caused by poor seed production the previous year, led to rampant supply chain issues in the state,” Eubank said. “Rice producers were forced to contend with waiting for seed until mid-April in some instances, and some had to plant low germination seed supply.”

Although rice planting began in mid-March with a good planting window, heavy spring rains forced some producers to plant later than they wanted or to switch to a different crop entirely. Eubank said this severely affected Mississippi’s final total acreage for 2025.

“By early April, heavy rains persisted throughout the state, causing flooding and forcing replanting situations in pockets of the state,” he said.

Once planted, continued weekly rains kept farm equipment out of the fields, delaying herbicide applications, levee establishment and fertilizer application.

“Some producers were forced to spoon-feed their pre-flood nitrogen because constant rainfall never allowed them back into their fields after levees were constructed or, worse, never established,” Eubank said. “Spoon feeding means we have to spread out fertilizer applications across three to four applications rather than our typical large application prior to flooding.”

While much of the crop was planted by mid-April, those acres planted later had to contend with significantly less rainfall and an increased frequency of herbicide drift from windy conditions.

In June, the Mississippi Delta received 50% more rainfall than it typically receives, but July was uneventful, allowing producers to prepare for harvest season.

“When harvest began in earnest in late August, the benefits of hitting the early planting window were noticed, as there were good yields across the board for most varieties,” Eubank said. “But as we moved into September, we began to reap some of the consequences of those early spring rains.”

Rice that received early rains that delayed nitrogen application saw lower than expected yields.

“One particular phenomenon that was reported was rice split stem, a condition where the plant forms an additional tiller on an upper node of the plant," Eubank said. “Many factors can influence these occurrences, such as herbicide, delayed nitrogen or environmental stressors.

“Split stem rice has never been as prevalent as it was this year in Mississippi, and it resulted in some fields with as much as a 100-bushel-per-acre yield reduction,” he said.

Rice producers also had to contend with the rice delphacid, a very damaging pest in Texas rice production that has moved into Louisiana, Arkansas and now Mississippi. Eubank said MSU researchers Don Cook and Tyler Towles were the first to confirm a population in Stoneville, Mississippi, and he later was contacted with reports of this pest in south Delta counties.

“This will definitely be something to monitor for the future,” Eubank said.

Lower rice production would benefit from higher prices, but Will Maples, Extension agricultural economist, said rice prices are down.

“Currently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects an average farm price of $12 per hundredweight for long-grain rice,” Maples said. “This is down from the $14 we saw last year and significantly lower than the high of $15.90 per hundredweight we saw in 2023.”

Maples said rice producers are facing the same difficult farm economy that other commodities in Mississippi are experiencing with low prices and high input costs.