Extreme nighttime air temperatures in 2010 impact rice chalkiness and milling quality

Research shows that elevated nighttime air temperatures (NTATs) contribute to increased chalk formation and reduced milling quality in rice. Arkansas rice-growing regions experienced exceptionally warm weather conditions during the summer of 2010, providing an opportunity to test this hypothesis under extreme conditions. Data from a previous study, conducted in years 2007–2009 (Ambardekar et al., 2011), was extended to include 2010 data, and analyzed to evaluate the correlations of 95th percentiles of NTAT frequencies (NT95) occurring during reproductive (R) stages of six rice cultivars with chalk and peak head rice yields (pHRYs). Long-grain cultivars produced chalk values that were positively correlated to NT95, and pHRYs that were inversely correlated, during the R5 through R8 stages. Medium-grain cultivars, Bengal and Jupiter, which in the original study showed little or no response to elevated NTATs during all R-stages, showed significant positive correlations between chalk, and negative correlations between pHRY, and NT95, during the R7 and R8 stages. The 2007–2009 analyses indicated quadratic relationships of chalk with NT95 and linear relationships of pHRY with NT95. However, addition of the 2010 data indicated that both of these relationships were quadratic in nature. The extreme temperatures observed in 2010 also verified that while cultivars vary in their level of resistance to NTAT effects, all of the rice cultivars analyzed throughout the four-year study exhibited some degree of susceptibility to extreme NTAT temperatures occurring during critical grain-filling stages.

• 2010 weather conditions confirmed that high night temperatures elicit chalk in rice.
• High heat during grain-filling produced a quadratic chalk vs night temperature relationship.
• Head rice yield showed a negative quadratic relationship to high night temperature.
• All cultivars tested exhibited varying degrees of susceptibility to these effects.