Drone video shows rice harvest beginning. How is wildfire smoke affecting the crop?
The rice harvest in Sacramento Valley, where most of the California crop is produced, has begun for 2020.
Much of the rice was planted earlier than normal this year because of a dry spring, allowing for earlier field preparation, according to the USA Rice Federation. However, smoke from the massive wildfires seems to be slowing crop maturity as harvest approaches.
Bruce Linquist, a plant species specialist at UC Davis told USA Rice that smoke, and therefore lower temperatures, are delaying grain drying and harvest.
A drone video (above) from California Rice Commission shows the harvest at Monta Farms near Yuba City. Monta Farms CEO Nicole Van Vleck said she began harvesting short grain before Labor Day and is moving forward steadily.
“Although we have had relatively high temperatures, the two weeks of smoke have blocked the sunshine and as a result the fields have not dried out as much as we normally would see,” she told USA Rice. “Our yields and quality look really good.”
“So far, so good,” said rice grower Tom Butler about his grain harvest in Sutter County.
“We thought we could get going a little bit earlier than we did,” Butler told the California Rice Commission. “I think the smoke actually slowed the rice down in ripening and finishing off just by hiding some of some of the heat and sunlight in the last couple days ... but we’ve been going for a couple days full speed.”
