COTEAU HOLMES — Crawfish and rice might seem like a natural fit, but the two agricultural endeavors sometimes conflict, farmers learned at an LSU AgCenter Master Farmer Field Day recently.

“It’s a balancing act,” said Jeff Durand, who farms about 975 acres of rice and close crawfish with his brothers Daniel, Gregory and C.J.

Raising crawfish probably worsens aquatic weed infestations, Durand said during the field day, and more fertilizer for rice also is required because of crawfish production.

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About the only way to combat rice water weevils is draining an afflicted field, he said, explaining that insecticides can’t be used on fields that will be used for crawfish.

When rice is grown in a field previously used for crawfish, Durand said, it’s not unusual for crawfish to feed on the seed.

The Durand brothers also said they have “a devil of a time” with birds feeding on crawfish. Pelicans, ducks and coots congregate at the farm to feast on its crawfish, Durand said.

Wildlife biologists counted 30,000 coots one day at the farm, but they were not convinced the birds feed on anything but vegetation, Durand said. A few hours of surveillance convinced them otherwise.

Since the coot invasion was during duck season, regular hunts were organized to reduce the coot population. In seven hunts, 300 hunters participated.

“Every hunter had his 15-bird limit,” Durand said. “The next day, we still had 30,000 birds.”

The Durand brothers have tried airboats, big lights and air cannons, all to no avail.

Biologists came to the farm and placed radio collars on a handful of coots.

“The next year, they all returned,” he said.

Ducks and coots also forage on rice seed, causing losses of 5 to 10 acres a year, Durand said.

The Durand farm has been designated as a Model Farm by the LSU AgCenter. The designation is part of the Louisiana Master Farmer Program.

This is the second time the farm has been so designated.

“It’s not that we’re special or anything,” Jeff Durand said. “We just do some things a little different, and this is a way to show other farmers what we’re doing.”

But it really is something special. The Durand brothers are not like most farmers in the area — or in the country. Theirs is a first-generation operation.

“We really started farming in 1980. We were in heavy construction,” Durand said. “I grew up on a bulldozer.”

He explained that, as family land was cleared in logging, it was put into rice and crawfish production.

“We got a lot of help from area farmers. They told us how to do certain things,” he said. “But early on we decided we didn’t want to spend all our time walking the little levees with a shovel and patching them.

“We got on the bulldozers and built up bigger levees, and put pipes in them. It cost a lot, but it was worth it.”

Durand said the number of levees has been reduced on the farm, resulting in fields as large as 85 acres each but averaging 40 acres.

The typical strategy on the Durand farm has been to farm a field in rice/crawfish production for three or four years and then to leave it fallow. This year they’re going to try producing soybeans in the fields that would have been left fallow.

Durand said soybeans had been planted in the past to develop organic matter for rice, but if prices are good and the crop succeeds, the beans will be harvested. Last year, Austrian winter peas were planted for organic material, he said.

The Durands usually water-seed their crop, but they have the option of drill-seeding without tilling. In fact, fields often go two to three years without tilling, and that can save up to $75 an acre, Durand said. By plowing a minimum amount, more topsoil and organic matter remain in place.

As part of the demonstration for the late-May Field Day, Durand showed participants two Mason jars of water. One was filled with runoff from a tilled field. The other with runoff from a no-till tract. The first looked like strong chocolate milk. The latter almost looked clear enough to drink — almost.

Donna Morgan, LSU AgCenter Model Farm coordinator, said the conservation practices used by the Durands result in samples from monitoring stations that have met water quality standards.

In fact, she said, water discharged from the Durand farm is cleaner than water in surrounding canals.

The Louisiana Master Farmer program is an environmental education program designed to help farmers and ranchers identify and adopt best management practices. It is intended to help them address environmental concerns, such as water quality, while maximizing their potential productivity.

Model farm visits are vital for the 2,300 participating farmers to complete the second phase of the program toward certification, and the field day at the Durand farm was part of that process.

The Louisiana Master Farmer Program involves three phases. The first is an intensive classroom-style educational program about a variety of topics. Then come the field tours of farms where conservation practices have been implemented. Finally, Master Farmer candidates are required to develop and implement a comprehensive conservation plan on their own farms.

For more information or to sign up for the Louisiana Master Farmer Program, contact Donna Morgan at (318) 613-9278 or dsmorgan@agcenter.lsu.edu or visit www.lsuagcenter.com.