New Arkansas medium-grain rice Taurus in high demand as drought plagues California

All the initial foundation seed available for Taurus this year has been spoken for by seed growers. Orders are being taken through the end of February for 2024 seed. The Division of Agriculture produces foundation seed, which it sells to certified seed producers who in turn grow seed to sell to individual rice producers.

“Taurus is a step-change in yield for medium-grain rice,” said John Carlin, director of the division’s Arkansas Rice Variety Improvement Program. “We feel like it replaces Jupiter as the go-to, Mid-South medium-grain variety.”

Demand for medium-grain rice seed in the South coincides with a decrease in California’s medium-grain production due to severe drought over the past several years. The price of California’s medium grain rice has been above $30 per hundredweight since October 2021, and as high as $35 per hundredweight in the last few months, according to Alvaro Durand-Morat, assistant professor of agricultural economics and agribusiness for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the Division of Agriculture.

Although Arkansas medium-grain rice is targeted to different export markets than California’s, there could be some spillover effect on medium-grain planting intentions, Durand-Morat noted.

Foundation seed for Ozark, the new conventional long-grain rice from the experiment station, was mostly sold out by the end of January, according to Glenn Bathke, the experiment station’s Foundation Seed Program director.

For the 2024 season, the Foundation Seed Program will produce 20% more Taurus and Ozark seed than that ordered this year by the end of February, Carlin said.

Taurus benefits

A cross between four other conventional varieties, Taurus has a plumper kernel than Jupiter and outshined the latest Arkansas-bred medium-grain varieties, Lynx and Titan, in the 2021 trials at six locations, according to Xueyan Sha, senior rice breeder for the experiment station. In 2022, Taurus outperformed Titan by over 20 bushels per acre in the Arkansas Rice Variety Advancement Trials averaged across six locations in Arkansas.

The Foundation Seed Program produced its maximum amount of Taurus foundation seed, 630 units, by utilizing a nursery in Puerto Rico over the winter. A unit is a 50-pound bag of seed.

Taurus has both Pi-ks and Pi-z genes for rice blast resistance. Milling and grain quality for Taurus, as well as lodging tolerance, are equal to or slightly better than Jupiter, Sha said.

Taurus reaches 50% heading in an average of 86 days, which is about three days earlier than Jupiter or Lynx but three days later than Titan, with a plant height of 36 inches. The new medium-grain variety has an average milling yield of 64% head rice and 71% total milled rice. In comparison, Lynx, which was released in 2020, offered average milling yield of 59% head rice and 68% total milled rice.

Titan will continue to be produced by the Arkansas Foundation Seed Program, while Jupiter will be phased out in 2023, Bathke said. In early February, there were 120 units of Titan and 20 units of Jupiter remaining in foundation seed inventory.

“With the reduced acres of California medium-grain rice, there will be unmet demand that Arkansas farmers could meet,” Bathke said.