In 2005, when Fred Uhiren, his neighbors, and even his banker, looked out over his 157 acres of beautiful CL131 seed rice treated with ProAct™ Plant Health Regulator, they saw an exciting difference and looked forward to how it would cut and mill. Little did they know two “ladies” named Katrina and Rita would have their own plans for Arkansas rice, and it wouldn’t be pretty.
Uhiren’s farm is near Carlisle, about 30 miles east of Little Rock. He produces high-end seed rice like CL 131 and CL 161 as well as wheat and soybean seed for Stratton Seed Co. Fred likes to try new technologies, and early in March 2005 he saw a report in one of the farm magazines about ProAct and Harp-N-Tek™ technology.
“I tore that article out and kept it in my truck visor to remind me, and so I could show everybody,” says Fred. “My chemical rep was able to get enough ProAct to treat the acres I wanted to try it on. Spring was cold and dry, so I waited and put the ProAct on with my last herbicide spray. This has always been a pretty good field, but I felt it could do more, and maybe ProAct would make that happen. And it did.
“Everybody saw the difference right away since the field is close to the highway. They were all asking what I did that was different this time, and why it looked so good. It was my best-looking field. It was so pretty and even it looked like a carpet you could walk across. The plants were healthier overall, the root systems were stronger, the fill came on faster and better, the panicle weight was heavier. We all just marveled at how good that field looked. Even my banker was excited.
“But something else turned out to be awfully important. The ProAct field matured a couple of weeks earlier than usual. I don’t know if that was the better plant health or what, but I’m thankful for it. We’d been in drought conditions, and the rice withstood the stress, so I drained the fields earlier, and when I cut some samples the rice was soon ready to go. I was able to get my entire rice crop harvested a couple of weeks earlier than usual – right before the backlash from Rita came through here and laid everybody’s rice down and flooded the fields. There was a tremendous amount of crop loss around here, and many farms are in a bad way because of that and the higher costs Katrina and Rita caused. But I had the prettiest rice I’ve ever cut. I was very fortunate.
“When I saw the yield and milling results, I was really tickled it did so well – about 10 to 15 bushels/acre better than last year and much better than most other farms around here were able to produce because of the storms. The dry weight yield was 169 bushels/acre. I even had a better than average stand on the levies. Milling around here was way down, but mine on the ProAct-treated CL 131 was 60/70 (% Head Rice/%Total Rice) on one lot and 56/70 on another. ProAct is a miracle worker as far as I’m concerned, and now I’m going to use it on all my rice.”
Stedphen Bariola and Eric Kelly, with Stratton Seed, provide crop inputs for the Uhiren farm.
ProAct™ and Harp-N-Tek are trademarks of Plant Health Care, Inc.