Scott Landgraf pictured with a pecan tree behind his house in Madill, Okla. (Photo by Laci Jones)

Our Vision. Our Pecans.
By Laci Jones

On a cloudy, late September morning in Madill, Okla., Scott Landgraf picked a pecan off the ground and pulled out a small pocket knife. The owner of Landgraf Farms began carving away the shell, leaving two pecan halves. Once he finished splitting the pecan, he looked up and said, “This is a lost art.”

Oklahoma produces an average of 20 million pecans each year, Landgraf explained. This year, Oklahoma is predicted to harvest 30 million pounds of pecans.

“The largest crop that’s been reported in history is 60 million from Oklahoma,” he added. “I don’t know how this crop is going to come out, but it may be more than 30 million this year. It’s really a pretty good crop.”

Born in 1948, Landgraf saw firsthand the advancements in pecan harvesting, sanitization and shipping. Growing up, his father Bill Landgraf harvested native pecan trees that grew along the creeks.

“My interest in pecans stemmed from the first real money I ever made by picking pecans up out of the water in the creek,” Landgraf recalled. “It was very hard work, but I look back on it as favorable memories.”

The father-son duo climbed many native pecan trees and used cane poles to flail the pecans. The pecans that landed on the bank were his dad’s, and Landgraf claimed the pecans that he could clean out of the creek, he added.

“My family saw pecans as an opportunistic crop,” Landgraf said of his parents. “It was not a crop per se. It was just something that enabled them to have extra things for what we think as today as just bare necessities.”

In the early to mid- ‘60s, Bill began seeing pecans as orchards. He cleared bottomland and started grafting the pecan trees to varieties available—Stuart and Mahan. Bill later began experimenting with different pecan varieties in the ‘70s. While some pecan varieties fared better than others, Bill had a successful harvest. His wife Leota took the first step in marketing Landgraf Farms by selling pecans out of their carport.

Meanwhile, Scott Landgraf attended Murray State College in Tishomingo, Okla., where he met his wife Janice. A year behind Landgraf in college, she followed the Madill, Okla., native to Oklahoma State University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in education. They married in 1971.

While pursuing a master’s degree in agronomy from OSU, Landgraf began working for the Noble Foundation. Landgraf obtained his master’s degree in 1973 and began his career spanning 30 years with the foundation now known as the Noble Research Institute. Landgraf first worked as a manager of their soil and forage testing laboratory. As time progressed, the manager became an agricultural consultant.

Landgraf Farms plant a variety of pecans on their farm in Madill, Okla., including the Pawnee variety. (Photo by Laci Jones)

“As time went on, they recognized my interest in pecans,” Landgraf explained. “I continued to do a lot of work in water and nutrition associated with pecan production and towards the end of my tenure with the Noble Foundation, I was their pecan specialist. My years at Noble have provided me an amazing education into the process of growing pecans.”

At 55 years old, the pecan specialist retired from the Noble Foundation to focus on the family farm. He started his pecan orchard in 1976, planting 250 pecan trees out of sight.

“I planted them back where nobody could see them because I didn’t know if it was going to work or not,” Landgraf laughed. “I was afraid of everyone seeing my failure.”

The planting was successful with only about three trees dying that season. Landgraf said the first season proved the pecan business takes labor and commitment. From planting to harvest, pecan production became a family endeavor.

“In fact, we had a baby at the time, and we set a playpen in the middle of planting trees,” Landgraf recalled. “We basically planted trees around the baby.”

That commitment was tested in June 1996 when a thunderstorm uprooted nearly every native pecan tree to the east of the farm. While orchards were also located on the west side of the farm, Landgraf said the storm demolished one of their main sources of income and involvement in pecans.

“It was a matter of just pushing them up in a pile and burning them,” he added. “There was no recovery.”

The setback resulted in a family meeting to discuss the future of Landgraf Farms.

“I remember very vividly setting the family around the table to say, “Hey, are we going to go ahead and rebuild this or are we going to just stay at this size?” he recalled.

It was a unanimous decision among the Landgraf family to rebuild the orchard. They cleaned up all the debris from the storm, drilled wells and installed irrigation lines. With a large tree spade, they moved half of the trees on the west side of the farm to the east.

Many people commented on the project, thinking the Landgraf’s were building a large barn.

“When I got ready to transplant the trees, I cut all side limbs off and painted the trunks white,” Landgraf explained. “When they looked up here, it did look like the start of a barn with just a pole sticking up.”

The project could be viewed from the Landgraf’s back window. His wife Janice said the trees looked like a cemetery with the trees resembling tombstones. She asked Landgraf if it will ever look like a pecan orchard, he recalled with a laugh.

Today, the pecan orchard no longer looks like a cemetery but like a pecan orchard, but each year takes the same commitment and hard labor as the first year. Each January and February, the Landgrafs plant 10 to 15 acres of new orchards, which entails installing main water lines, irrigation systems and well development.

Buds start to break by the first of April, and Landgraf applies zinc and nitrogen to the developing leaves.

“I might put on an insecticide, but I think that the zinc and nitrogen spray is just really important to the development and the health of the tree,” he added.

During the dormant season, he monitors for common diseases and pests that can be detrimental to the health and development of the pecan trees including pecan scab and pecan nut case bearer.

The shucks on the pecans start to split by the end of September. Because the pecans are not harvested until October and November, the pecans are vulnerable to freeze.

“There’s still that existing threat,” Landgraf explained. “As soon as the shuck splits, the shucks start to dry down and the nut is physiologically mature, we’ll start harvest.”

Landgraf harvests 160 acres on the farm, 100 acres on his father’s leased land and 500 acres of native pecan trees on leased land. He also currently has almost 100 acres of pecan trees planted that are not in production. The Landgrafs plant different varieties of pecans including Kanza, Caddo, Choctaw and Pawnee.

The Choctaw variety is their No. 1 big nut, Landgraf said. The desirables are big nuts, but they are disease-prone. Producers who choose to plant the Choctaw variety need to increase their “level of management” because the Choctaw variety requires plenty of water and nutrients to resist these diseases, he added.

The Kanza variety is a high quality pecan, but it is a small nut. The Caddo variety is similar to the Kanza variety in size, but it is more susceptible to diseases like scab. It is a high-quality nut and the most consistent yielder.

Landgraf found consumers will not purchase the small pecan varieties like Kanza and Caddo in the shell because it is smaller than other varieties. However, consumers prefer the smaller nuts that are high-quality when the shells are removed.

“In all of agriculture, I think we have to conform our production practices to meet the demand of the consumer,” Landgraf explained. “In our retail shop, we certainly abide by that rule and cater to them.”

The Pawnee variety matures first, and the Landgrafs begin harvesting this variety by mid-October. The nuts are taken to the shop where they are cleaned, sanitized and dried.

“It is kind of an arrangement with my wife and me that I get them to the shop, and she takes them and sells them,” he added.

His wife Janice uses social media along with drive-by traffic to sell their entire crop in the farm’s retail shop. The retail shop is open November and December each year, selling a variety of products including chocolate covered pecans and pecan oil. As soon as all sales are completed, Landgraf begins fertilizing and cleaning up any brush left over from harvest.

With more than 30 years of experience in pecan production, Landgraf said there are three keys to have a successful pecan orchard—water, micro-organisms and nutrition. Making sure the pecan trees have an adequate supply of water is the most important key. Landgraf Farms implemented an irrigation system to combat the common Oklahoma drought.

“Along with that, I make sure that I’ve got adequate water supply and all my irrigation comes from wells,” he added. “I’ve been blessed with a major aquifer under the farm that I was not aware of. It’s just a real blessing.”

The second and third keys to encouraging healthy pecans are proper nutrition and micro-organisms. The Landgrafs apply pesticides to overcome threatening pests. It is imperative for producers to understand the life cycles of insects and diseases to properly manage the orchard.

“I only use pesticides when I have to have them,” he added. “I’m not saying I’m against use of pesticides. It’s just I use them sparingly, and my greatest friends are the beneficial insects and all the micro-life in the soil.”

Landgraf said technology made a positive impact on this growing industry.

“It went from using a cane pole to get them out of the tree to not knowing where you go to buy a cane pole,” he added. “It’s been in my lifetime, and we take it for granted.”

The pecan shelling plants had large structures with different devices when Landgraf was young. He said there was a divide in the industry from the growers, the shellers and the sellers. Landgraf’s father approached Basil Savage of Savage Equipment after attending a pecan shaker demonstration in Madill, Okla.

He convinced Savage to construct the first pecan shaker in his machine shop in Ardmore, Okla. Savage built and sold him that pecan shaker to use on the large native trees at the farm. The machine was not big enough to shake the trees well, so they had to shake them several times.

“I mean it was cool to use a tractor to get those nuts out instead of having to crawl around like a squirrel,” Landgraf recalled. “That process continued on. I can harvest the 160 acres on this place in less than a week with myself and a couple hands. It’s just phenomenal.”

As for the future of Landgraf Farms, he said he hopes to continue the vision of expansion with his family. He and his wife Janice have three sons—Jeff, Wes and Justin, and four granddaughters.

The retail shop is located at 18814 Highway 70, Madill, OK 73446. For addition information on Landgraf Farms, visit www.LandgrafFarms.com.

This article originally appeared in the November 2017 issue of Oklahoma Farm & Ranch. 

Fall is in the air and with it the impending doom that is another school year. For me, a homeschooling mom of three, it is not quite as dramatic as sending them to school each day, but the pain of realizing they are another grade older is still there.

This year, it is hitting me especially hard with my eldest child and only girl. Last year, she was an inquisitive first grader who struggled with certain letter sounds, and tally marks and, only wanting to go outside to practice running barrels. This year she is a confident second grader who can read full sentences, knows how to tell time and, still only wants to go outside to practice running barrels. This is the goal of schooling, of course, to make sure they are learning a little bit each day but, for some reason, it still stings.

Maybe it is the fact that just the other day she was a tiny baby in a pink onesie who was screaming her lungs out at Cheyenne, Wyo., every time an airplane flew over our living quarters trailer. I also think it was just yesterday that she was just a toddler running around the arena grounds in her cherry swimsuit playing in buckets of water. It was at those times she had me fooled into thinking that she would be that little forever and that she would always need me there to comfort and console her as she rejected my every “shhhhh” and “let’s have a juice box!”

The reality now is that she barely needs me at all anymore. She can catch her own horses, do her own hair, and make her own friends. Heck, I think she even makes better tortillas than me. How did this happen? Can someone please explain the phenomenon that is time?

The cold hard truth of all this is that I have been raising her to be this very thing from the moment she was born. I wanted her to be braver and stronger than me. I wanted her to love herself fiercely so she could love others fiercely as well. I wanted her to know the comfort of home so she could feel the confidence to leave it someday. I raised her to be a wonderful and independent woman and now I hate myself a little for it. Dramatic? Probably so but, couldn’t she be a little more needy? Is that too much for a cowgirl mother to ask?

While I am faced with the reality of a growing young lady it has caused me to look deep inside myself and consider the young lady I want to be myself. “Young” always being a relative term of course. What kind of role model do I want to be for this little girl who looks up to me more than I could have ever imagined?

Of course, I wanted to be kinder. I want to be considerate of others’ feelings. Generous. God fearing above all. All these things are attainable with a little devotion to one’s Bible and something we as parents do already.

But I kept thinking. What is the one thing I need her to realize to be able to survive in this world? And I realized that was just it. She needed to forget the world.

The world will tell little girls that they need to conform. That they need to be pretty and to wear designer labels. That They need to be perfect wives, mothers, and the ultimate career women. And then it will turn right around and tell them that it is impossible. That they are depressed, and that maybe if they got a new car, home, or family it would be better for them. The world continuously tells them that they are not enough and that maybe a little more self-care will rectify that problem. One more facial and they will be a new woman.

I may be considered an old haggard woman for this and, I guess I kind of am but, I don’t remember the last facial I had. I love being with my family, and I drive a 1990s Lexus. I for one don’t want my little girl to ever hear any part of what the world is telling her. I want her to run as far from it as she can and be the innocent, tender-hearted but, strong woman God has called her to be. I want her to ride horses and be content working in the garden first thing in the morning. I want her to acknowledge the fact that people who work in agriculture are a special breed and should be admired and emulated. I want her to like her coffee black, except on her birthday where sugar and cream is totally acceptable. I want her to get her hands dirty but, know how to wash them with lavender soap. I want her to be different than the rest of the world.

Women are in a tough spot in the world these days because we have put ourselves there. We need to step back and remember the power there is in just being ourselves. Somewhere along the way We have forgotten that we can be quiet and still be a force to be reckoned with. We have forgotten that we can stay home and raise babies and still change the world.

This is a tough message to send to a seven-year-old cowgirl, but you know me, just out here doing the Lord’s work. All jokes aside, I know I could never accurately describe all this to my daughter. So, I will have to show her instead. It will be a hard and at times a daunting task. Some days I will wake up and don’t know if I am capable at all. I am a mother who fails often. I lose my temper, I give up, and I cry. Sometimes I give them ice cream for supper and wear white after Labor Day. I am a human, and it shows. But, maybe that’s what she needs to see? Maybe being vulnerable and failing but picking myself up anyways is the lesson that little girls need to be taught? Maybe standing beside her dad instead of in front of or behind is exactly where she needs to see me. Maybe helping her along the way instead of constantly pointing my finger is the friend she really needs.

There are a lot of “maybes” in motherhood and in life. I don’t know if there is always supposed to be an answer either but, I do know that there is value in being a mama to a little cowgirl. She teaches me to keep going, to do better, and to up my tortilla game or I will be out of the job.

This article originally appeared in the September 2024 issue of Oklahoma Farm & Ranch.

Fred Rule, DVM from Elk City, Okla., treating a horse with colic.

Unwritten Rules of a Veterinarian
By Laci Jones

The phone rings. When Fred Rule, DVM, of Elk City, Okla., answered, the veterinarian of more than 50 years sprung into work-mode. The rancher on the opposite end of the phone had a horse with colic. They began talking about symptoms and scheduling future visits. The veterinarian joked, “I don’t even buy green bananas. I don’t plan that far ahead.”

The spontaneous veterinarian was born in Kansas on Dec. 29, 1939. When he was five years old, the Rule family moved 100 miles west to Ramona, Kan., with a population of 400 people. His father worked in the “implement business” for a John Deere Dealership while his mother stayed home to take care of their five children—Judy, Fred, Janet, Jim and Kim.

An ornery boy, Rule said he always carried a knife and matches. He got a “whooping” on the first day of school in Ramona because he carved his name in the desk and started a fire in the boy’s bathroom, he laughed.

Shortly after, they moved 14 miles to a larger town called Herington, Kan. It was an agricultural- and railroad-based community of 3,000 people, he added. Rule was a smart child, but he never took notes. He was also a gifted athlete particularly in football. After graduating high school, the young athlete enrolled in Kansas State University on a football scholarship. There, the tight end had a “few rude awakenings.”

“When I got up there, I found out that there were a lot of guys who were very fast and very big,” the former football player recalled.

An injury to his left knee sidelined the young athlete, and he focused on earning a bachelor’s degree. The KSU alumnus said “for some reason” he decided to become a veterinarian when he was in eighth grade. Although Rule was raised in town, he was surrounded by farming. It is not that he disliked farming, but he said he always wanted to be a cowboy and work with livestock.

“I always said being a veterinarian was my vocation, but a cowboy is my avocation,” Rule said. “Fortunately, the two have mixed well over the years.”

Rule went to KSU with a former high school classmate named Jack Webb. Webb’s father raised quality rodeo horses, which peaked Rule’s interest saying, “That’s how we got in the rodeo business.”

However, his rodeo days were put on hold while he was in veterinary school at KSU. Kansas State University’s Veterinary School was among the elite in the United States at the time. During his six years in veterinary school, the student was exposed to hands-on learning.

“Kansas State was a very unusual school,” Rule began. “At that time, there was not a veterinarian in town in private practice. It was an unwritten law that they didn’t do that.”

The college provided veterinary service to all the surrounding farms and ranches. This allowed Rule and other veterinary students to practice before entering the field.

“When we got out of vet school, we could go to a private practice and make them money because we knew how to do it,” he added. “We didn’t need [established veterinarians] to show us how to do a lot of things. We didn’t know how to do everything by a long way, but we could do ordinary stuff.”

After receiving his DVM in 1964, the graduate moved to Holdenville, Okla. Rule said Oklahoma was known for their high-quality horses at the time, which is what he wanted to specialize in. He worked under established veterinarian Lewis Styles at his mixed-practice.

After he received his veterinary degree, Rule decided to get back in the rodeo business. He purchased his Pro Rodeo Cowboy Association card in 1966, where he tried his hand as a team roper and steer wrestler. The rodeo cowboy said he mostly “contributed to the pot.”

“I’d win something every now and then,” he laughed. “I truly enjoyed it though.”

Meanwhile, he continued to work under Styles, but there wasn’t enough work in eastern Oklahoma to satisfy the young veterinarian. Rule moved to Frederick, Okla., a few months later to work with Joe Flanigan, DVM, where he found himself in a similar situation.

At the same time, one of his former KSU classmates, Garland Hinkle, was working in Elk City, Okla., in a large practice owned by Bill Lockridge. When Lockridge decided to move to the bluegrass state, Hinkle and another veterinarian took over the practice.

They needed another veterinarian, and Rule moved to western Oklahoma by the fall of 1965. A few years later, another former KSU classmate Gail Anspaugh joined the practice. They eventually bought the other veterinarian’s share of the practice and sold a third of the practice to the third KSU alumni, Anspaugh.

“We probably have been the only three-man practice in the United States who are all classmates who have been together 50 plus years,” the distinguished veterinarian added.

The former classmates later opened a second hospital in Sayre, Okla. Anspaugh specialized in cattle, sheep and pigs, Hinkle focused on both large and small animals and Rule worked with horses 90 percent of the time. They later hired another veterinarian, Jimmy Fochs, DVM, for several years.

The veterinarian said moving to Elk City, Okla., was one of the best decisions he made. He wanted to work with good horses and his practice in western Oklahoma opened many doors for the veterinarian including the Beutlers from Elk City, Okla.

“When I came here, Beutler Brothers Lynn, Elra and Jake were a big rodeo outfit,” he added. “If you count [Rhett Beutler’s son] Jake, I’m on the fifth generation of Beutlers producing veterinary service. The whole Beutler family is pretty good friends of ours.”

Lynn Beutler was a business man who did not refer to him by name, the veterinarian recalled. Rule recalled an incident in the late ‘60s where Beutler had a bronc that was colicing. When he arrived at the Beutler’s, the business man told the veterinarian, “I’ve got a lot of money spent on this horse.”

The veterinarian oiled the bronc, sent him through the stripping chute and tried different methods. The next day, he could see the horse was not improving, which led Rule to believe the horse had “something shutting him off” where he could not pass anything. Beutler asked the veterinarian what his options were, and Rule said there’s nothing he could do except opening him up to see if he could fix it.

“At that time, our general anesthetic wasn’t worth a flip to tell you the truth,” he added. “I run him through a stripping cute, and I knocked a board over on the left side down near his flank. I gave him tranquilizer, cleaned him up, blocked him and cut a hole in his flank right up high.”

The Elk City, Okla., veterinarian found a fecolith, a large, hard fecal material, in his intestine. Rule extracted the fecolith and closed the wound. The horse never missed a meal after that, he added.

“From then on till the day [Beutler] died, I was Dr. Rule,” the veterinarian laughed.

He went to Beutler Brother Rodeos nearly every weekend, where he competed as a steer roper then go back to work. The Elk City, Okla., resident has served as the official veterinarian for the Elk City Rodeo of Champions for more than 40 years.

At the same time, Walter Merrick American Quarter Horse Association Hall of Fame member and horse owner was “in his prime,” Rule explained. Merrick had a ranch at Crawford, Okla., later adding on in Sayre, Okla.

“Of course [Walter Merrick] produced Easy Jet, Jet Smooth and all those horses,” he said. “I had the good fortune to do all the breeding work as well as furnish veterinary service to them. It’s another family that I made pretty good friends with.”

Rule said he had good luck as an equine veterinarian in western Oklahoma. Having Merrick as a client for about 40 years as well as other clients including thoroughbred owner Pete Maxwell allowed him the opportunity to work with the best horses.

“When I came here, this country was full of good horses and good horseman,” Rule added. “I learned more the first couple of years I was here than I did them good.”

Rule said he has always been involved in the community from school boards to state equine organizations. In the early ‘70s, the Oklahoma Horseman Association were instrumental in starting the organization, Prairie Mutual Racing in Oklahoma.

“I remained active in that for years. In fact, I was the president of that for several terms,” he explained. “We were involved in writing the rules of racing and putting together our excellent state-bred program.”

The goal of the organization was to represent all equine breeds. Ultimately, these breeds split off into their own organizations including the American Quarter Horse Association and the Thoroughbred Racing Association of Oklahoma, which Rule was on the board for.

After the divorce from his first wife, the Kansas native thought he would not marry again. In the late ‘80s, World Champion steer wrestler, C.R. Boucher invited Rule and fellow friend Joe Phillips to visit in remote Montana.

“Up in that country there were big ranches where they drag calves,” he said. “It was kind of a fun deal.”

Rule said they made the trip in the fall where it was -40 degrees Fahrenheit one morning. When he got down to the pen, a person who was bundled-up except for their eyes approached the cowboys.

“I couldn’t tell whether it was a male or female,” he explained. “They were just so bundled up and wanted to know if we wanted some coffee and yeah, we sure would take some. It was the first time I drank coffee with peppermint schnapps in it at 9 o’clock in the morning.”

That bundled-up person happened to be Marlene Newman, who was raised on a large, remote ranch in east-central Montana. She later moved south to the Sooner State in 1990 and married the veterinarian the following year. They have five kids from previous marriages—Justin, Toby, Jeff, Julie and Jacquae.

In 2014, the PRCA Gold Card carrying member was named the Zoetis PRCA Veterinarian of the Year. He was nominated for this prestigious award by former NFR qualifier Larry Dawson and stock contractor Bennie Beutler. With more than 50 years spent as a veterinarian, Rule has seen many changes in the veterinary field including technology and the male to female ratio.

“I didn’t get to see the best of it, technology-wise, because now the equine world has access to the same things that the human world has,” Rule said.

The male to female veterinarian ratio has changed since Rule first started practicing. In an industry that was once dominated by males, today female veterinarians outnumber male veterinarians three to one, he explained.

Rule also said the environment in which veterinarians practice has changed as far as the law. The distinguished veterinarian said they did not worry about liability, but he said that is changing.

“We just recently, a little over a year ago, because of health issues amongst my partners and myself, shut our hospitals down,” he explained.

Rule still does cool semen breeding with partner Jose Acosta, who worked for Merrick for 22 years. The honored veterinarian said he still enjoys practicing veterinary medicine. He was going to quit practicing, but his clients and friends “won’t let me.” Rule said the area needs an equine veterinarian, and he will continue to fill that role.

This article originally appeared in the August 2017 issue of Oklahoma Farm & Ranch. 

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