Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** texas rice producers believe…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** texas rice producers believe their industry is experiencing an existential threat due to water cost increases and availability decreases. Other pressures include loss of good fertile land to competing interests in real estate/urban sprawl, and unpredictable markets. The need for texas-specific research on how to decrease water inputs in texas rice to preserve a 100+ year tradition in an important rice producing state is urgent. And IT can be done.texas ranks 5TH in the US in rice production (figure 1). Producers here are concerned about the sustainability of their industry due to increases in the cost of irrigation water, decreases in access to water, the rising cost of land, and the spread of urbanization displacing fertile rice production fields (personal conversations with leading farmers). Water constraints alone are blamed for the decrease in (certified) acreage from 600,000 to ~ 180,000 acres in the state over the last 2 decades. In 2022, a decline of 6.3% was reported in texas compared to 2021 (nass, 2022).despite an alarming decline in acreage, the texas rice industry contributes ~1 billion USD to the state economy annually (nass, 2021). Approximately half of that value is attributed directly to the grain crop and the other half is attributed to hunting, birdwatching, and other outdoor activities. In fact, texas rice producers actively participate in the maintenance of winter-feeding grounds for migratory bird species, including many that are protected. Texas rice producers and their advocacy organizations such as US rice and texas rice council regularly engage with water policy makers to secure outcomes that favor sustainability of the industry. Often, however, water policy decisions continue to favor increasing municipal supply at the cost of agricultural use. Still, producers eagerly seek to incorporate innovations that reduce their water inputs and methane (CH4) emissions, to be part of a solution to the water and climate crises that face the world.thisproject seeks to ensure the long-term sustainability of rice production in texas through substantial reduction in the quantity of water required to achieve comparable grain yields while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. By inserting aeration events into the production season, this project will evaluate the water savings and effect on grain yield in rice. The long-term goal of the project is to increase adoption of water saving practices in texas and arm rice producers with real knowledge of their impact on climate change mitigation. The project will measure reductions in CH4 emissions in intermittently aerated fields compared to continuously flooded rice fields. This aeration practice has been called alternate wet drying (AWD) irrigation. However, there are concerns among farmers that the introduction of aerobic conditions may also result in fertilizer nitrogen (n) chemical transformations in soil that can lead to losses of n fertilizer use efficiency, and perhaps of more concern,, increased emissions of N2O. Therefore, short term goals are to develop better information on these processes that may be counter to climate smart intentions.