UC researchers have completed their first year of monitoring the biological, physical and chemical processes in California rice fields as growers convert from post-harvest burning to incorporating rice straw back into the fields. This season, air-quality regulations allow only 60 percent of the state's rice acreage to be burned, decreasing to 25 percent by the year 2000. "We anticipate that such large-scale changes in rice farming practices also will have some major impacts on nutrients, pests and other cultural factors," says UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Jack Williams, who is part of the research team that recently issued a progress report detailing its observations in Sacramento Valley rice fields. "The burning phase-down is taking place gradually, and so will the onset of some of these changes," predicts Williams. While the report, "Monitoring Rice Straw Management Practices," indicates that winter-flooded fields have a higher rate of straw decomposition, it would be premature for growers to alter their long-term growing strategies based on only one season's results, he says.