California rice is stored in silos until it’s milled and packaged, and inspected at every step for quality.

It’s a process built on precision, stewardship, and generations of experience. 🌾

At the dryer, rice is unloaded, cleaned, and prepared for storage.

Each load is handled with care to maintain quality and consistency.

Trucks then haul the rice from the field to drying and storage facilities, often within a few miles of where it was grown.

As the combine fills, rice is transferred into a grain cart. All part of a carefully timed relay that keeps harvest moving nonstop.

Inside the cab, harvest begins.

Modern combines use GPS and sensors to ensure efficiency and precision, cutting rice cleanly while minimizing waste.

Before cutting begins, growers make final adjustments to their combines — the massive machines that cut, thresh, and separate rice grain from the stalk.

Black Terns aren’t just visiting rice country — they depend on it.

Research shows that without flooded rice fields, California's Black Tern population would face serious risk of local extinction.

watershed.ucdavis.edu/project/cons...

📸Credit: Brian Baer