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Texas Sized Rice Harvest

When George Raun set out from Nebraska in 1913, "he was going to show Texans how to raise hogs," recalls 81-year-old Norris Raun, George’s son. Trouble was, the south Texas land around El Campo wasn’t the rich feed corn ground he had left in Nebraska. And, to top it off, a cholera epidemic swept through the area and killed off his entire first-year Texas herd of hogs.

But George was resourceful, if not a bit stubborn. "He was too proud to write home about it, and prouder still to admit defeat," Norris chuckles. Cotton already was king in these parts, but the parcel of land George purchased near Hahn, Texas, was ideally suited for rice production. He planted his first rice crop, with success, in 1915. "If he had turned left toward Danevang when he moved here instead of right toward Hahn, we’d be cotton farmers today," says 89-year-old Russell Raun, George’s eldest son.

Long History with Cat

Since George’s days, Russell, Norris and their younger brother, 72-year-old Lowell, along with their offspring, have built a South Texas rice production empire. Caterpillar equipment and technology has been a major factor in their premium long-grain rice operation since the late-1930s.

They put Caterpillar D-6, D-7 and D-8 dozers to work clearing thousands of acres of live-oak forests for fields. Caterpillar dozers, motor graders and scrapers leveled the land and shaped the fields and rice levees, as they do to this day. Caterpillar power units have pumped the water onto the fields for decades. In fact, Norris still uses a Cat G342 power unit, with nearly 50,000 hours on it, in a pumphouse on Sandy Creek. The unit, purchased in the 1970s, was overhauled with about 27,000 hours on it, and has run flawlessly since. Those kinds of hours are the result of meticulous maintenance and attest to the quality of the Caterpillar power unit. They represent the kind of reliable performance that the Raun family has come to expect from Cat equipment. That’s why, decade after decade and generation after generation, they keep coming back for more.

When Caterpillar first introduced rubber-belted tractors, Norris made a bee-line to the 1987 Con-Ag Expo in Las Vegas to look at the first Challenger 65 tractor. Himself an innovator and tinkerer in the farm shop, Norris scoured the new tractor with a fine-tooth comb. He was on his back under the machine examining the exclusive Mobil-trac™ system. He was so impressed with the engineering of the Challenger tractor that he came back home and immediately ordered one through his local dealer in El Campo. "I just think there is a place in the rice field for rubber tracks," says Norris. His nephew, Layton, is even more adamant: "Challenger rubber-track tractors, with their engineering and better flotation, were a quantum leap forward for farming."

Timeliness

Timing is everything in the production of rice in south Texas. Unlike rice regions farther north, a second crop of rice harvested later in the fall – the ratoon crop – is essential here for maximizing annual yields. Typically, the ratoon crop, which grows off the root base of the first-crop rice plants, yields about a third of what the first crop produces. It becomes a high-profit crop, though, by the fact that tillage and reseeding are not required and, aside from a little fertilizer, inputs are minimal.

"Rubber tracks allow us to get in the field several days earlier than tires would. Tracks let us get the field opened up, aired out and ready to plant," says Layton. He and his father, Russell, use his Challenger 55 Wide-Track™ tractor – equipped with 32-inch belts and set at 100-inch track spacing, for nearly every application in the rice operation. In addition to drilling the rice seed, the tractor is used for some deep tillage with a sub-soiler going down about a foot to break up the hardpan. It also is used to laser-level the fields and to pull a cart outfitted with a VFS50 track trailer at harvest.

Flotation

Richard Raun, Norris’ son, uses a Challenger 45 equipped with 25-inch belts on his 1,300-acre rice, milo and soybean operation. "Rubber tracks really show their benefit in a wet year when your good days are at a premium," he says. "You can do so many things with this tractor in adverse conditions. If it’s wet, you can get in the field without making a mess like you would with tires."

As Norris points out, the fact that tracks reduce ground disturbance while harvesting the first crop means destruction to plants is minimized. He says that vastly improves the yield of the ratoon crop by nearly 30 percent.

Tracks leave a smoother field, with less rutting than you would see with tires. And, because the tracks stay on top of the ground instead of powerhopping and slipping 10 or 15 percent, as tires would, the Rauns find their rice stands are more even across the fields.

Lexion Combine on Tracks

Forever the technology buff, Norris took delivery last summer of a top-of-the-line Lexion 485 combine. When a new piece of Caterpillar agricultural equipment comes on the market, Norris is at the front of the line. "My neighbors tell me that when I die, I’m going to Peoria," he laughs.

"I wouldn’t have wanted this combine if it didn’t come with tracks," adds Norris. "But the big reason I chose the Lexion combine was the Accelerated Pre-Separation (APS) system on the front end."

The APS system performs about 30 percent of the initial threshing and separation. The peripheral speed of the APS cylinder is 80 percent of the main threshing cylinder peripheral speed, smoothing out the transition of the grain from the feederhouse. Norris says that is a major factor in improving the quality of the rice over any combine he’s used. The up-front work of the APS allows him to run the main cylinder at a slower speed with a wider concave gap, which reduces damage to the rice or milo that Norris harvests. Norris has equipped the 30-foot header with a double-cycle cutter bar to handle heavy cuttings in rice fields that can yield as much as 6,000 to 8,000 pounds of rice per acre. "I’ve never seen a header feed into a combine so smoothly, and I’ve never seen a machine put less out the back end. The grain quality is excellent," he says.

Reliability and Value

Lowell’s son, L.G. Jr., has a quick list of reasons why he’s used Cat equipment his whole life and now owns a Challenger 55 Wide-Track tractor with 2,200 hours on it: "Reliability, value, quality and service," he says.

L.G. uses the Challenger 55 for planting and tillage, to pull a scraper and for precision laser leveling. Field maintenance is a major time-consuming aspect of rice farming and, in addition to a scraper, L.G. also owns a Cat 140 motor grader and a venerable Cat D6 track-type tractor with steel tracks to shape his fields.

In 1999, L.G. was named Texas Rice Farmer of the Year by the U.S. Rice Federation for his involvement in the industry. In addition to 720 acres of long grain rice, he raises 11 acres of seed rice. His 1999 long-grain rice yields averaged about 6,700 pounds per acre on the first crop and another 2,100 pounds per acre on the second crop. He and wife Linda also raise 31 acres of organic Jasmine variety rice that they direct-market under the Lowell Farms logo to various supermarket chains, gourmet markets, health food outlets and via the internet at http://www.lowellfarms.com.

Their relationship with the Caterpillar dealer in El Campo has had a big influence on the Raun family’s equipment buying decisions. "When I wanted to look at rubber-track tractors, my dealer brought a Challenger 45 out here to demonstrate. He left it with me a couple of days – long enough so I could really see how it ran in my operation. That type of service is important and is a big reason I decided to buy a Challenger 55," says L.G.

The Raun family legacy continues to take advantage of agricultural technology to expand and grow. L.G.’s brother, Tim, fills out the third generation of Rauns to farm rice in south Texas. Norris’ grandson Lance Raun (whose father, Travis, is a pilot) and grandson-in-law, David Green, are the fourth Raun generation in farming.

Norris recently completed a video of the Raun family farming history where he lent some perspective to the changes he’s seen in agriculture:

"In 1915, a threshing crew was made up of 20 men and 20 mules hitched to 10 wagons. In 1999, two men in two hours harvested more rice than those 20 men and 20 mules in one day. This year, with my Lexion combine, I can say that two men get that same amount of work done in one hour!"

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