This morning I was out with several members of our research team on the northwest side of the valley planting a variety trial. The grower we were working with had just finished planting all of his rice acreage (1200 ac) yesterday (April 30). Pretty amazing how fast the rice is getting in this year.
I have heard that there may be a shortage of aqua-ammonia (aqua) fertilizer for the start of this year's rice season. This begs the question as to what are the options. In previous studies, we have compared aqua to urea fertilizer.
While most Californians are staying home to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, California farmers, farmworkers and other agricultural professionals are out in the fields and packing houses working to produce food.
As you know, we have been monitoring armyworm flights with pheromone traps across the valley since 2018. This year, the first set of traps were put out on 4/10 near Princeton, and today we put out a few more. We checked the first traps today, and we got an average of 2 moths per night per trap.
In the past few weeks, we have been getting updates from some irrigation districts that water allocations have been reduced in some areas. We have provided some information in past years that will still be relevant this year. During drought years water deliveries are often restricted.
