Like most agricultural crops in Louisiana, Christmas tree farms have been impacted by the state’s prolonged drought. Good management techniques on farms have kept mature trees from drying up said Valerie West, an LSU AgCenter forestry agent in northwest Louisiana.

She said consumers can still expect to see real trees this holiday season.

Described as a labor of love by one of its developers, the LSU AgCenter’s new web-based Drought Irrigation Response Tool, or DIRT, will greatly benefit farmers during one of the driest seasons on record.

Small grain variety trials are conducted annually by scientists of the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center Agricultural Experiment Station to evaluate grain yield, agronomic performance and disease reaction of varieties and advanced breeding lines. The trials are conducted at seven LSU AgCenter research stations representative of the major soil and climate regions of the state.

Join Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program for the seventh annual farm to school conference at the Pennington Biomedical Convention Center on Oct. 11, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event will emphasize three main components of farm to school: education, school gardens and local food purchasing.

It’s a few months early for most people in Louisiana to have crawfish on their minds. But the cycle of producing crawfish for those eagerly anticipated springtime boils is already underway — and this summer’s drought conditions could have an impact.