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of illegal marijuana in six large suitcases. Each package weighed approximately 1.2 pounds for a total weight of 248 pounds.

The driver, Xiong Ren, 53, of Chickasha, Oklahoma, was arrested and transported to the Lonoke County Detention Center, where he was booked on felony charges of possession with intent to deliver and unauthorized use of another person’s property to facilitate a crime.

Ren told investigators he was traveling to Wisconsin for Christmas.

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Arkansas rice suffers low milling yields after strong start

LITTLE ROCK — With only 20 minutes to summarize the Arkansas research findings and rice crop outlook for those in attendance, Jarrod Hardke, extension rice agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, began his address to the 2024 USA Rice Outlook Conference like so: “Profitability isn’t in the 2025 vocabulary,” Hardke said.

The conference, held at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock on Dec. 8-10, came at the end of a season for Arkansas rice growers that was as baffling as it was disappointing. As early as March, the state was flirting with record early planting across more than 1.4 million acres of rice, bumping up against Arkansas’ generally acknowledged capacity for the crop.

“We had the majority of the rice crop in the ground by the third week of April. It was incredible,” Hardke said. “But around that third week of April, periodic rains began to develop and continued all the way into June, and everything stalled out.”

As growers struggled to take their rice plants to flood in May, many struggled to fall back from “plan A” to “plans B, C and D, just trying to deal with wet soils and get things done,” Hardke said.

Grower sentiment hit another high point in June and July, when the rains receded and temperatures rose. Concerns that the crop might have lost significant nitrogen fertility due to the saturated soils proved dissipated, the higher nighttime temperatures appeared not to have impeded grainfill and weed escapes proved minimal.

“By July, we felt this was a really good-looking crop, and the conditions were really good,” Hardke said “We were on track for an early planted crop to be harvested early.”

While one Arkansas grower did manage to claim bragging rights for kicking off his rice harvest on July 31 — an unusual feat in any year — a temperature drop led many of the state’s rice producers to pause.

“The crop just didn’t look ready to many growers,” Hardke said.

“It was another full week before most producers began their rice harvest,” he said.

“Frankly, more growers should’ve started on that earlier date. Grain moisture began to fall, and the big story became that Arkansas had planted so much rice that we wouldn’t be able to harvest it fast enough.”

The rising August temperatures, combined with the rapidly falling grain moisture, led to lower milling yields.

Hardke said he began receiving calls from growers and consultants early in the harvest, looking for answers and hoping for a turnaround.

“We thought we were beginning to see a little improvement as we neared September, but over Labor Day, we saw a weather pattern shift, bringing rains through the state,” Hardke said. “That began to cause some rewetting and drying of the grain that was out there, which started pulling milling yields down further.”

When remnants of Hurricane Francine pushed through the Mid-South, making landfall over Louisiana on Sept. 11 shortly before being downgraded to a tropical storm on Sept. 12, Arkansas growers still had about one-third of the state’s rice crop in the ground. While Arkansas was spared the worst of the storm’s direct effects, the wind and rains throughout the Delta region only compounded Arkansas rice’s woes.

“The milling yields on everything after the hurricane came through were just junk,” Hardke said. “Ridiculously bad. We’re now looking at what will be one of the lowest milling yields ever recorded in Arkansas, if not the lowest we’ve ever had.”

Ironically, forecasts for overall rice yield and production are at near-record levels.

While U.S. Department of Agriculture numbers haven’t been finalized, Hardke said he believes the state’s grain yield will be very near those of 2021, when average yield exceeded 7,630 pounds per acre across more than 1.2 million harvested acres. With such widespread low milling yields, however, the profitability of the 2024 crop remains in doubt.