Texas Rice Growers Optimistic Despite Challenges

Aug 14, 2025

By Adam Russell

The Texas rice harvest is in full swing, and growers hope a good second crop can bring a positive end to a challenging season, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service expert.

Sam Rustom, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension agronomist and assistant professor in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Eagle Lake, said it’s looking like an average year for Texas rice despite some challenges. Overall, rice production dropped 6,000 acres to around 143,000 acres.

Rustom said producers planted rice early this season and are therefore harvesting earlier. Yields look about average – 8,000-9,000 pounds per acre – for the state, and it is too early to estimate rice quality because mills are still drying down rice kernels.

Rainy weather and high temperatures during peak flowering in late-June and early July impacted yield potential, he said.

Rice delphacid, a piercing-sucking insect pest that also can spread disease, likely contributed to lower-than-expected yields in some fields that experienced major infestations, Rustom said. The invasive planthopper can also impact kernel quality.

Rustom said delphacid appeared in 2015, but last season was the first time they were found in the main crop. Historically, they have only been a pest in the ratoon crop. This season, rice delphacid was an issue in all rice-producing areas of the state during the main crop.

“It’s been a pretty rough year dealing with them,” he said. “We’re still seeing solid yields coming out. It’s been better than expected in fields with rice delphacid, so that is a positive.”

Rice growers look for strong second crop

Rustom said the primary concern around delphacid is its potential impact on the ratoon crop. Ratoon rice crops are a second crop of rice that is produced from plant regrowth following a cutting. Many producers break even with the main rice crop and find profits with the ratoon crop.

Growers should be “extremely aggressive” with scouting and treatment regiments against delphacid, he said. Main crop stubble should be mowed back to 8-10 inches and treated as early as possible. Rustom said growers can reach out to him or their AgriLife Extension agent for the latest delphacid control recommendations.

Other than delphacid concerns and ongoing challenges controlling barnyard grass in fields, Rustom said conditions are trending positively for a strong ratoon crop due to the early harvest.

“I expect our growers will do a good job of protecting their ratoon crops,” he said. “That is really what is keeping us in business right now.”

Prices down, but rice acres could go up

Rustom said rice prices, like most agricultural commodities, were down. Prices were sitting around $12.75 per hundredweight, whereas prices are typically closer to $14-$17 per hundredweight.

The impact of tariffs on imported rice has been minimal for U.S. producers so far, he said. Rustom said consumers, especially those in ethnic markets, are willing to pay the higher price to get the aromatic rice they prefer.

Rustom did note that U.S. rice growers would see better price assistance from agricultural provisions in the latest federal funding bill. That change could help growers when facing break-even rice prices.

Water could be another incentive for Texas rice production next season.

Though rice acres declined this season, Rustom expects them to rebound in 2026. The increase could be significant – 20,000 to 40,000 acres – because heavy rainfall refilled surface water sources that have been off limits to agriculture producers for years.

“Those lakes are at levels that they will allow irrigation water for agriculture,” he said. “That’s going to be something big for rice farmers in the Eagle Lake and Bay City areas.”

Source : tamu.edu

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”