Rice season ends positively despite fewer acres planted

RAYMOND, Miss. -- Although Mississippi rice producers planted fewer acres this year than is typical, it was a good production year overall.

“Yield reports were positive for the majority of our fields,” said Will Eubank, rice specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. “We had some outliers, of course. But compared to 2024 and 2025, which were pretty bad years for yields, we had a good year. It wasn’t great, but it was good.”

He estimated 90% to 95% of fields had been harvested as of Sept. 30. Producers planted 48,000 acres of rice, down about 70% from 2025’s 162,000 acres. 

Producers experienced favorable weather during planting season, and about half of the state’s acreage was planted between March 15 and 20. 

Then, a period of dry weather hit that affected germination.

“We got a lot of rice planted during that early window, but around early April, we had a month and a half of very dry weather that caused uneven germination,” said Eubank, who is stationed at the Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville. “We were chasing moisture or waiting on a rain.”

Once growers began flooding fields, the uneven germination meant fields ended up with more mature rice in the lower parts of fields while rice in the upper parts were less developed.

“You almost had to manage two different crops early in the season,” Eubank said. “You had rice in one part of the field that was five to six days further along than in the other part of the field. The lack of rain also meant we had problems with herbicides.”

As producers entered mid-season, concerns about rice delphacid increased. Rice delphacid is an invasive pest that can cause yield loss and is a vector for rice hoja blanca virus. It was confirmed in Mississippi rice in 2025. Native to Central and South America, it was first found in the U.S. in Texas in 2015. Louisiana and Arkansas confirmed its presence in 2025, as well.

“We were really concerned about this pest this year,” Eubank said. “We stressed to everyone that we should be scouting and controlling early, before it got to be too big of an issue. But it never showed up. That was a big relief for our guys.

“We think it was that stretch of about a week and half to two weeks of freezing weather that we had early in the year that kept them from being a big problem. They don’t survive freezing temperatures very well. Louisiana also did not have an issue with them,” he said.

Late summer’s brutal temperatures impacted milling. High temperatures in the field can cause rice grains to develop poorly, primarily resulting in fissured kernels, leading to shattered grains during milling.

“We had a lot of triple-digit days, record-high days and high nighttime temperatures this year,” Eubank said.

Dry weather allowed harvest to begin without any issues. 

“Harvest went fast but overall was underwhelming from a yield standpoint,” Eubank said. “Early harvested rice in mid-August performed extremely well. Issues started arising when storms with strong straight-line winds started knocking down a lot of rice fields, which slowed harvest time for many growers. 

“These straight-line winds also brought with them rain showers. When we get rain this late in the season, it causes the rice grain to uptake moisture and reduces overall grain quality,” he said.

Will Maples, MSU Extension agricultural economist, said the drop in acreage follows the national trend, with rice acres falling 25% across the U.S.

Both export and domestic use projections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture are down from 2025. Long-grain exports for 2026-2027 are estimated at 50 million hundredweight, down 7% from last year. Domestic use is projected at 117 million hundredweight, down 11% from last year. 

Long-grain ending stocks are expected to fall nearly 50% to 21.4 million hundredweight. As a result, price projections by the USDA put the long-grain season-average farm price at $13.50 per hundredweight, up from $10.40 last year.

“Even at these higher prices, most Mississippi rice producers are looking at losses because input costs remain high. Diesel is up about $2.50 per gallon since last fall, and that hits rice especially hard because pumping water for flood irrigation is a major diesel expense,” Maples said.