By Shelby Shank
Field Editor<\/p>\n
As soon as Dillon Berglund could walk, he was in the rice fields with his dad.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were times I\u2019d fall in the mud, and he\u2019d have to go back home to change my clothes,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cI\u2019ve been out here ever since, and I wouldn\u2019t want to do anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
At eight years old, Berglund\u2019s role in the fields had grown. He carried a shovel in his hand and walked the levees with the farm crew to check water levels.<\/p>\n
His dad began farming rice in the late 1980s and later gave Berglund his first farm after college.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad asked if I wanted to work for him or work with him,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cAnd I said, \u2018I think I want to work with you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Berglund grows commercial and seed rice in El Campo and Louisiana.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a farmer,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s never changed. This has always been it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growing rice to feed consumers
Berglund\u2019s passion for rice comes from more than his childhood memories in the fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really just a passion of the crop and being able to sell it directly to consumers and feed the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Most of his crop is seed rice, which is stored after harvest and sold to farmers for the following year\u2019s production.<\/p>\n
Berglund also grows commercial rice for specific markets. Some goes to Campbell\u2019s Soup, which uses a variety selected for its ability to retain its shape while in the can and on the shelf.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty fulfilling knowing that I\u2019m growing a crop that is feeding consumers,\u201d Berglund said.<\/p>\n
Planting begins in March. Once the rice reaches eight inches tall, water is gradually introduced, and the crop remains under a shallow flood for the rest of the growing season.<\/p>\n
When the rice reaches maturity, deciding when to drain the fields is critical.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you drain too late, you\u2019ll get chalky rice. If you drain too early, you\u2019ll get chalky rice,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cAnd at that point, it just goes to dog food.\u201d<\/p>\n
After draining, Berglund gives the soil two weeks to dry before harvesting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re lucky, we don\u2019t get any rains during that time, and we get to cut dry,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t happen near as often as we\u2019d like it to, but that\u2019s the risk we take.\u201d<\/p>\n
Water challenges
Rice has long been a defining crop along the Texas Gulf Coast, where flat land, climate and access to water create favorable growing conditions.<\/p>\n
But water is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to access.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a good aquifer under us,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cWe have to drill about a thousand feet down to get it, and to drill a water well here could cost you over a million dollars today.\u201d<\/p>\n
His wells require 300-horsepower motors and pump roughly 4,000 gallons of water per minute, adding significant costs to production.<\/p>\n
Those costs have contributed to declining rice acreage in Texas as farmers consider growing other crops.<\/p>\n
\u201cTexas raises the highest quality of rice in the United States, but we also have some of the highest costs of production,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cAnd that is the leading reason why we are dwindling in farm acres across the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Expanding across state lines
Water availability also influenced Berglund\u2019s decision to expand his farm into Louisiana.<\/p>\n
The opportunity came when Berglund learned of a large tract of land available\u2014something he said is increasingly difficult to find in Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was worth the risk of trying it and expanding that way to see how it goes,\u201d said Berglund, who is a Wharton County Farm Bureau member. \u201cAnd it\u2019s gone well so far, and we\u2019re in our second year up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Farming seven hours away from home is not easy, but Louisiana offers surface water.<\/p>\n
Rather than drilling deep wells, Berglund pumps water from the bayou, runs it through the fields and returns it to the bayou.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cost of water is almost half of what we pay here,\u201d Berglund said.<\/p>\n
The reward of harvest
After months of planting, watering and waiting, harvest gives Berglund the opportunity to see the results of his work.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou stress so much about putting seed in the ground, and there\u2019s a lot of faith that goes into it, making sure that it gets the soil and moisture it needs to come up,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when harvest comes around, you know you did a good job, and you get to see how your work turned out.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a feeling Berglund has known since he was a boy walking through rice fields with his dad. And years later, he\u2019s still there, growing the crop he always knew would be part of his life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Shelby ShankField Editor As soon as Dillon Berglund could walk, he was in the rice fields with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[151703,27,29,28,151704],"class_list":["post-437795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-dillon-berglund","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-rice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}