Center Pivot Rice and Peanuts Are Promising

Their old nemesis, the pigweed, may still be around, but otherwise, Jeremy and Kyle Baltz believe they've found the perfect crop combination in the form of rice and peanuts rotated under center pivot irrigation. Having just finished their second year of growing pivot-irrigated rice and their third year of peanuts, the brothers say the mix already holds more promise on their high, sandy soils than corn and soybeans.

In addition to owning and operating the Baltz Feed Company in Pocahontas, Arkansas, which serves as the local hardware store and feed, fertilizer, and chemicals dealer, Jeremy and Kyle also farm approximately 1,300 acres of rice, peanuts, corn, milo, and soybeans. However, the rice and peanut rotation under pivots has so far been limited to just two 140-acre pivots.

Peanuts perfect for their soils
Irrigated peanuts and rice offer a lot of potential. "The biggest challenge is weed control," says Jeremy Baltz, echoing the thoughts of others who have tried center-pivot rice. "Pigweed would be a nonissue in flooded rice, but in sandy soil under a pivot, they're relentless."

To date, Baltz says their only recourse has been to hit hard with 2,4-D and hope they can stay ahead of the weeds until the rice forms a canopy. "Right now, we're not putting anything through the pivot except for water," he says.

In the meantime, the peanut acreage in northern Arkansas has been growing by leaps and bounds. In 2010, there were approximately 600 acres in the area planted to peanuts. This past year, that number surpassed 18,000 acres, which prompted the Baltz Feed Company to become one of two buying points in the region for the new legume crop.

"Peanuts actually do very well in our sandy soils, as long as they're under irrigation," Baltz says. "Buyers are only looking for peanuts that have been grown under either flood or pivot irrigation. That way they don't have to worry about aflatoxin."

While peanuts under the pivot have been averaging around 2 tons per acre, Baltz says last year's rice crop averaged 140 bushels per acre. With more aggressive weed control, he is hoping to hit 150 to 160 bushels per acre, which would make the rotation a very profitable rotation.

Twice the revenue
"With the right management, we believe that with the rice-peanut rotation on our sandy soils, we'll be growing $1,000 to $1,500 revenue crops vs. half of that for soybeans and corn or milo, even though corn prices have gone up," Baltz says.

One of the other benefits of growing rice under center pivot irrigation is that it requires less water than flood irrigation. Even though Baltz has been "pouring the water to it," the crop still needs less water than if the whole 140 acres were flooded.

"Valley gave us some moisture meters, but we've come closer to just running the pivots continuously," Baltz says. "On sandy soils, we'd be doing that with flood irrigation, as well. We're putting on about ½ to 1 inch at a time.

"It's still a learning experience," Baltz says. "The things that aren't even an issue in flooded rice are the things that cause the most problems in pivot rice. We're not looking for pivot rice to match our flooded rice, partly because most of the flooded rice is on gumbo, clay soils. We're looking for our pivot rice and peanut rotation to exceed our other pivot options, and we think it can."