An elementary school implements a gardening and culinary program to teach students how to prepare recipes using produce grown in their own school garden through the help of a local farmer.

A school district makes changes to its nutrition policy and introduces a life skills course that includes using a vocational kitchen and raising a school garden whose produce is sold at the local farmers market and included in cooking demonstrations for the community.

The theme of this year’s 4-H University was “Excel” and hundreds of extraordinary students from across the state did just that, winning and placing in a variety of categories from e-sports to insect identification and beyond.

A new crop disease reference guide co-edited by two LSU AgCenter-affiliated plant pathologists is designed to aid students, crop consultants and producers for decades to come.

“Diseases of Field Crops,” a 400-page reference guide, details disease symptoms of 22 major field crops with more than 800 high-quality photographs.

With temperatures nearing 90 degrees before 10 a.m., producers from across the state endured the heat and humidity to learn the latest on planting and disease control and to taste unreleased varieties at a commercial vegetable field day June 14 at the LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens at Burden.

Foliar symptoms are usually not evident until soybean is in the mid to late reproductive growth stages. Initial symptoms are small chocolate brown lesions on the petioles near the leaflet. As the disease progresses, foliar symptoms are expressed as a reddish brown to tan discoloration on the upper leaf surface in the upper canopy.