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South Arkansas: With the substantial increase in heat units the last few weeks the fields are ahead of their DD50 predictions. The Lincoln Co. row water field was one of the earliest to head causing stink bugs to reach threshold levels triggering an application. The Arkansas Co. field is 100% heading and unless stink bugs disperse by Monday it will also receive an application. The Jefferson Co. field stink bug numbers are running 3-4 per 10 sweeps.

Current conditions have the rice crop speeding along. It’s not just your rice either, it’s everyone’s rice. Daytime highs in the mid-90s and low temperatures staying above 70 have us rapidly accumulating heat units and keeping rice progress at near maximum. From here, we have some positives and some negatives. The daytime highs staying in the mid-90s should keep us from having pollination issues based on the extended forecast. Daytime highs near or above 100 are where we have pollination issues.

Driving around the Midsouth, especially in the Missouri Bootheel, West Tennessee and some areas of Northeast Arkansas it is not hard to find soybean fields that look similar to the picture below. Several thousand acres have been affected by either drift, volatility, temperature inversions or tank contamination from dicamba herbicide applications. No matter how many times we have mentioned the potential off target issues with this herbicide, it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.