FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS (RFD NEWS) — Mixed weather patterns and fluctuating input costs continue to shape planting decisions this season, particularly for farmers dealing with replanting in some areas. As spring planting progresses across the country, Arkansas producers are closely monitoring field conditions and weather outlooks.
Rice Agronomist Jarrod Hardke with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service joined us on Monday’s Market Day Report to provide an update on planting progress and conditions across the state.
In his interview with RFD NEWS, Hardke said Arkansas is experiencing some of the worst drought conditions on record for this time of year, with extremely dry conditions impacting rainfall totals, soil moisture, and agricultural decision-making across the state.
“So, for the state of Arkansas, we’re experiencing really the worst drought conditions on record for this time of year; Accounting—you can look at it a million different ways—and you come up with the worst drought,” Hardke explains. “The drought monitor conditions — most extreme droughts again on record since that survey was begun. Rainfall records—again, least we’ve received, whether you look at it from back in last fall to current timing, or even just starting since the first of the year. So we’re dealing with exceptionally dry conditions that are really changing ag decisions of what we’re going to plant, where, and how, on the fly at the moment.”
He says that planting progress in Arkansas is running ahead of typical seasonal averages, but noted that drought conditions are significantly influencing what crops are planted, where they are planted, and how producers are adjusting planting decisions based on weather.
“Because of the dry conditions, our overall planting and progress is greatly exceeding kind of our normal five-year average,” he says. “In my particular area of rice, we’re talking soybean and corn, our other major ones, cotton—we are a little early for cotton planting. I think a little bit is actually happening, but that’s really more mid to end of April, beginning of May.”
Hardke also discussed major shifts in crop decisions, including a projected reduction in rice acreage due to limited surface-water availability from reservoirs, rivers, and irrigation sources. He noted that more acres are shifting toward soybeans and corn as a result.
He also addressed replanting concerns, saying that while some areas—particularly in the southeastern part of the state—have experienced minor rainfall events that helped limit widespread replanting of rice crops.
“If it weren’t for, again, very minimal rainfall—but just slight rainfall events, not enough to even measure taking us out of drought, but enough to just keep some of these crops going, to give us some hope for the next rain maybe being more meaningful—it’s really prevented some replanting,” he says. “We were beginning to flush some rice fields, trying to keep some rice alive, and some of those areas got a half an inch of rain this past weekend, which is nothing in a drought, but it’s enough to get us to that next event, minimize some flushing and some replants.”
On the other hand, he explained that soybean and corn fields expected to have moisture are also being affected by dry planting conditions and remain under evaluation for irrigation to mitigate crop loss or replanting.
Hardke also spoke about rising fertilizer and diesel costs, noting that spring-applied inputs are creating additional pressure for producers already dealing with tight margins, and estimating that production costs—particularly for rice—have increased significantly.
The majority of our southern—for you in Arkansas, the Upper Mid-South—fertilizer is spring-applied, so most of our purchases and what happens occur into the spring, and we don’t always have all of that locked in and purchased because we’re never applying them until the spring,” he explains. So it really sets us up in the worst situation. And when you talk about rice, for instance, the increase in just urea and diesel prices has increased our production cost by $100 per acre on rice very easily. And that’s not even getting into increases on corn and some of the other crops. But what we’re going to move from here further is feeding that drop in rice acres.”
He further warned that Arkansas rice acreage could fall to levels not seen since the early 1970s if conditions persist, driven by drought and input-cost pressures.
“We’re looking at probably the lowest rice acres in Arkansas since the early 1970s,” Hardke continues. “We haven’t failed to have at least one million acres of rice in the state of Arkansas since 1983, and we’re going to go below that and rival the early ’70s before acreage controls came off. We’re talking in the 700,000s of acres potentially right now if we don’t get some help in terms of rainfall or some backing off and our input costs.”
