How to recover Flooded Paddy Field

With all of the rain experienced in south Arkansas this week, the questions certainly turn to rice survival. Rice is semi-aquatic and tolerates a flood but does not like deep water and submergence. It all depends on the overall conditions, but the condition of the floodwater is a key component. While there are no real management recommendations other than ‘get the water off’, here is some of what you can expect on rice survival which may influence your efforts on which fields to work hardest to remove water from. Younger rice, still in the seedling / tillering / vegetative stages, can survive for long periods of time under submerged conditions. When conditions are mild, and the floodwater is cool and moving, we’ve seen rice survive submergence for a month. However, we’ve also seen rice die in a week when floodwater conditions are deep, muddy, and stagnant. Older rice at midseason or around joint movement / reproductive growth is more sensitive to being submerged. If submerged for less than seven days, it generally survives but there may be issues with it laying over as the water goes down and need time to stand up.