Several years ago, Gregg purchased a fallow farm in Louisiana that was completely overgrown. From there he began to put together a plan to manage and transform that piece of property so it could meet its full potential. Since that time, he has turned that property into one of the most productive crawfish eco-farms in the country, Ritz Crawfish Company, and as a result, he is now one of the largest crawfish farmers in the United States. Detailing the process he went through to get to this point, Gregg says it all starts with location. Ninety percent of all the crawfish in the United States come from a 50-mile radius in Louisiana. Working with the strengths of the area, Gregg reclaimed the ground, had it precision leveled to a perfectly flat zero grade, put in levees and then planted rice. What people don't know about crawfish, he says, is that you also have to be a great rice farmer because crawfish eat rice stubble and vegetation after it is harvested. He also sought out fishermen to help him catch and transplant/stock his land with pure wild crawfish that are bigger, darker, heartier and have bigger claws. Gregg explains the symbiotic relationship between the crawfish and rice crop and outlines the timeline in which the rice fields are planted, flooded, stocked with crawfish and harvested. He also discusses the natural reproduction of crawfish, the number of eggs they can produce, molting and their lifecycle prior to trapping them. Describing the scope of his operation, Gregg says once crawfish season arrives, he and his team put 30,000 traps in the water and those traps are then harvested by hand 5 to 6 days a week for 4 months. In total, his once fallow ground now produces more than a million pounds of a crawfish each year.
It's a great and sustainable process, Gregg says. If you were to just raise rice and harvest it as a singular operation, the land would need to be disced and cultivated in order to get it ready for planting the following season. However, the crawfish take care of those processes naturally by eating down all of the rice stubble to the mud so the land doesn't have to be overworked. In fact, Gregg says that if an aerial seed application is chosen, the ground doesn't have to be worked at all in order to seed it for the following growing season. Approaching his crawfish operation like he does whitetails, Gregg says it's all about food, cover and water. The water in the fields is monitored everyday and it's changed out when needed and pumped from fresh water wells. They make sure there is suitable food available for the crawfish with the rice vegetation, but they also encourage the growth of other aquatic plants, like alligator weed, because when those plants grow they purify the water and put oxygen in. The result is a dual crop of rice and crawfish that are both grown in a sustainable way. Gregg says his goal is to popularize crawfish across the country and put them on par with lobster and crab.
Listen in as Gregg Ritz talks about creating a thriving crawfish farm, the management practices he has used to make it a success, the sustainable aspect of this operation and the pride he takes in being a part of it all. Don't miss this fascinating interview and its different look at wildlife management. Be sure to watch "Hunts Masters" on Outdoor Channel, Sundays at 8:30 p.m. ET. Also, check out Ritz Crawfish Company and all of their social media pages to see the process in action!
Bunny