Certain health issues preclude many people from consuming white rice. A new rice variety developed by the LSU AgCenter has a reduced glycemic score that is allowing people to put rice back on their plate. LSU AgCenter correspondent Craig Gautreaux has the story from the Cajun prairie of southwest Louisiana.

The LSU AgCenter will hold the Central Region Crops and Cattle Forum on Thursday, Jan. 6, at the State Evacuation Shelter near the LSUA campus in Alexandria.

Registration will begin at 7:45 a.m. The program will get underway at 8:20 a.m. with opening comments by Tara Smith, director of the AgCenter Central Region.

Small steps in a positive direction that lead to substantive change was the theme of Coming Together for Racial Understanding, a joint workshop between the LSU and Southern University agricultural centers held Dec. 9 and 10.

The two-day event focused on group exercises, open dialogues and active listening opportunities that concentrated on inclusiveness.

The LSU AgCenter and the LSU College of Agriculture recognized outstanding faculty and staff during an awards ceremony Dec. 14 at the LSU Foundation Center for Philanthropy.

The 3,000-acre Central Research Station south of Baton Rouge is the one among the LSU AgCenter’s 15 research stations that has brought about the most international acclaim, but it is little known outside of the LSU campus.

The fame came from two remarkable events that happened there. Back in 2000, the world’s first transgenic goat was born at the station and then cloned to create a herd of goats that produced a substance in their milk that could be turned into a valuable heart medication. This was four years after Scotland’s historic Dolly the sheep was cloned.

The LSU AgCenter will host a crop production meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 15 at the Scott Center on the Macon Ridge Research Station in Winnsboro, La. The meeting will focus on strategies for diversifying crop production in the northeastern region of the state.

For decades, LSU AgCenter researchers have sought to alter female horses’ reproductive cycles to help them become pregnant earlier and give birth at the beginning of the year to meet the needs of the competitive racing and show horse industry.

Oysters and fish represent the vibrant heritage of the Gulf Coast and a traditional way of life for the people of Louisiana. It is important to keep oyster and fish populations healthy and growing in the estuaries and along the Gulf Coast. The genetic resources of these fish and shellfish are what makes them suited for life here in Louisiana, and those genetic resources need to be protected.

In the past 10 years, Raj Singh and his staff at the LSU AgCenter Plant Diagnostic Center have examined thousands of plant samples mailed to them by home gardeners and commercial growers in search of answers to their horticultural problems.

From fungal infections to insect pests to nutrient deficiencies, the Plant Diagnostic Center has seen it all.