Rice culture in California faced many environmental challenges over the past several decades. These include:

• The imminent ban on rice straw burning due to air quality and health concerns.

• Movement of herbicides from rice fields into the Sacramento River in the 1980's forced growers to hold water in their fields to allow the break down of herbicides.
• Herbicide resistance of weeds: The number of resistant fields increased from 4 to almost 6000 between 1992 and 1995.
• Injury to nearby crops from herbicide drift led to stringent application rules and reduced herbicide availability.
• The Food Quality Protection Act may affect the availability of several herbicides currently in use, such as carbaryl, fenoxaprop-ethyl, molinate, and triclopyr.

The above reasons are prompting rice growers to seek alternative means of controlling pests and weeds while also maintaining the high yields achieved prior to these environmental conditions.

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