UC Rice Blog

 Recently, I have been getting questions about possible bird damage in early-heading rice fields. Blackbirds, primarily red-winged blackbirds, can damage rice from planting season, seedling stage, and the ripening period; however, in California, where the majority of our rice is water-seeded, typically…

The University of California, Davis and Point Blue Conservation Science partnered with the California Rice Commission to create a “Rice Footprint” – a comprehensive outline of how the California rice industry impacts ecosystems, wildlife, and communities, and how many acres of rice are needed for them to…

This is a question I have gotten several times in the past few days. As rice starts heading, and given that the price of rice is bad, can we cut the fungicide? The main reason to use a fungicide is to prevent diseases. The main disease we are worried about is blast. Blast can be devastating. However, we…

The program aims to encourage farmers to establish new habitat for Sandhill Cranes, ultimately helping to strengthen the species' population resilience in the Central Valley. By supplementing existing habitat, the program seeks to offer additional roosting and foraging areas. Roosting sites provide cranes…

The 2025 planting progress for rice in California was a bit unusual compared to other years. I am looking at the USDA figures and while they are not perfect, I think they give a pretty good general indication of planting. Some things to note for the graph shown in Figure 1.Due to a warm dry spring, 2025…