Storms threaten promising rice crop

There was a time when the sound of rice harvesters would be silent by the first week of October.

But that has not been the case for several years, and some estimates put as much as 75 percent or more of the crop still in the ground as another autumn storm was rolling in Tuesday night.

"We are about 15 percent completed at this ranch," said Doug McGeoghegan, who grows rice in Colusa and Glenn counties, as he walked into a field at Gunnerfield Farms near Delevan.

He does not feel alone.

"Looking up and down the valley, it is a veritable sea of rice."

In fact, while McGeoghegan is still a week or more away from harvesting fields planted in late May, he said looking a fields during a recent trip through Sutter County made him feel as though he was ahead of schedule.

The third straight wet spring kept farmers from planting when they would like.

The plus side, McGeoghegan said, is for those farmers who did get their crops in earlier, the lack of hot days early in the summer means the yield will not be as good as those fields planted a bit later.

McGeoghegan said at least that is the case with his own acreage, comparing the fields he has been able to clear compared to those still in the ground.

The tricky part, farmers agree, is being able to get the later fields harvested before Mother Nature delivers a knockout punch.

One of those potential shots was clouding up over the valley Tuesday, just a couple of days after the skies opened Sunday and soaked the valley floor.

The lack of sun on Monday and Tuesday meant the fields were still too wet to go back in and continue the harvest.

McGeoghegan is less worried about the rain than he is the inevitable north wind that often follows wet, cold storms like this one.

"If you get too much rain and a north wind follows ... the rice can fall over," McGeoghegan said. "And if it falls over, the grain is in contact with the ground and that can deteriorate the grain."

Ironically, even if the wind does not knock over the rice, it can dry it below the ideal moisture content of 19 to 21 percent, and that could cause the grain to crack.

"So what we don't want is the rain followed by the wind," McGeoghegan said.

Otherwise, he said, the late crop actually looks great, and healthy enough to weather the right kind of storm.

"I think the condition of the rice is good, so I think we can withstands some of these early fall storms," McGeoghegan said.

There are approximately 580,000 acres of rice planted in California, all of it north of the Delta.

The late harvest has also delayed the waterfowl hunting season on public lands, a courtesy state and federal wildlife agencies grant to farmers so the birds don't flock from the refuges to the safety of their uncut fields.

Just like the potential for what will be the fourth straight above-average rice crop, the hunting season holds great promise with then numbers of waterfowl up in the valley.