Rice Harvest Underway In Acadiana

It's almost as plentiful as the air we breathe and it goes a lot better with gravy. It's white gold or rice and in South Louisiana it's not only good to eat, it's a staple of our agricultural economy. The current harvest is in the early stages but if early numbers hold true, this could be a very bountiful year for rice producers in our state.

While the anticipated yield of 6,500 pounds per acre will fall short of last year's incredible 7,500 pounds per acre. Rice expert Dr. Johnny Saichuk says there is a very logical explanation for that.

"The biggest problem we had this year was too much rainfall.  Which means too much cloud cover, and that's a big thing.  We just didn't have the total number of hours of sunlight we needed to produce a crop like we did last year."

Saichuk's comments were reported by the Louisiana Radio Network.

He went on to say that farmers are still in the early stages of bringing in the crop and weather and other variable conditions could have some impact on just how large the yield for this year will be. He suggested that the coming weeks will give industry experts a better idea of exactly what Acadiana and Louisiana farmers will be bringing to the table.