Louisiana Rice Harvest Underway as Farmers Dodge Rain

Rice remains an important crop for Southwestern Louisiana. However, steady rains and overcast skies make it tough for Jeff Davis Parish rice farmer Charles Bruchhaus to get his crop out of the field.

By Karl Wiggers & Neil Melancon

Rice harvest is underway in Louisiana where and when rice farmers can dodge the seemingly constant rains that have plagued them all season long.

While rice is certainly a moisture-loving crop, it’s been a case of too much of a good thing in 2017, especially during harvest.  Charles Bruchhaus, who farms rice near Elton, said in spite of the rainfall, things are moving along, with yields coming in the 40 barrels per acre range, similar to 2016. 

Here’s an update in his own words:

“I farm in Jeff Davis and Allen Parish. Been farming since 1976 — rice, soybeans, crawfish — I do a little bit of everything to try to make it. 

“We’re in the process of cutting now. Our conventional rice is very similar to last year. We’re in the low 40’s, which is alright for conventional. The good thing about it is the price is a little better than last year. Hopefully, that’ll help out. Most of our conventional will be cut in the next couple of days and then we’ll move to the hybrids which we hope will do even better. The weather hasn’t really been very good to us.

“We fought heavy rains almost all year long — an abnormal amount of rain. In fact, here, we got 20 inches in late April, which was hard on our rice crop, our levees, everything. It's not cutting weather. We really don’t have any sunshine to dry, no breeze in the morning. Like today, we really didn’t get any measurable rain, it's just a light sprinkle. That’s a wasted day. You can’t harvest with moisture like that. 

“You never know when the weather is gonna turn on you, when you’d have a front come in and put a lot of rain on you, or there’s always the hurricanes coming down the road. When it's time to cut rice, we need to cut rice.”

Rice harvest will wrap up between now and August, with a second, or ratoon, crop being harvested in October and November.