Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission will Soon Turn 70
In 2022, the Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission will celebrate its 70th year representing sweet potato growers, shippers, processors and bankers by educating consumers on the yam’s many nutritional attributes and versatility.
“The alluvium soils of Louisiana produce a high-quality product and our growers have been doing it a long time,” said Rene Simon, director of the Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission. “We also have the added benefit of the LSU Ag Center Sweet Potato Research Station, which is dedicated fully to sweet potatoes. Our growers have that knowledge available to them.”
Read More
USDA Invests $700 million to Provide Relief to Small Producers, Processors, Distributors, Farmers Markets and Seafood Processing Vessels and Processors Impacted by COVID-19
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will soon publish Requests for Applications (RFAs) for new grant programs - the Pandemic Response and Safety (PRS) Grant program and the Seafood Processors Pandemic Response and Safety Block Grant program - to support agricultural stakeholders who haven’t yet received substantial federal financial assistance in responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
Read More
LSU AgCenter Scientist Elected to American Phytopathological Society
Rodrigo Valverde, a professor in the LSU AgCenter Department of Plant Pathology and Crop Physiology, has been elected a fellow of the American Phytopathological Society.
The society honored Valverde for his research in describing and characterizing many newly recognized viruses that cause disease in beans, citrus, pepper, sweet potato, tomatoes and ornamentals.
Read More
2021 Farmer Training Program Online Workshop being held June 23
The online workshop will be held virtually June 23 at 4 pm.
These mini-workshops are designed to provide entrepreneurial farmers with the essential skills and training needed to manage a sustainable farming business.
Read More
USDA Invests More Than $330M In Specialty Crops Grants & Help For Cotton Producers
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced the availability of more than $330 million to help agricultural producers and organizations in the food supply chain recover from the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding announced today is part of USDA’s Pandemic Assistance for Producers initiative launched in March, and includes $169.9 million for the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP), the availability of $75 million for Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program [GusNIP; formerly known as Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI)] grantees and approximately $80 million in payments to domestic users of upland and extra-long staple cotton.
Read More
Additional Coronavirus Assistance for Ag Producers Announced
Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry Mike Strain, D.V.M., said the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is offering more assistance to ag producers and organizations recovering from financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read More
Diversity Helps Agriculture Businesses Thrive
Tangipahoa Parish’s name reflects its agriculture heritage. The Acolapissa word “Tangipahoa” translates as “ear of corn” or “those who gather corn.”
While corn may have been a primary crop for the earliest inhabitants, not many generations ago, Tangipahoa was known as the “strawberries and cream parish” because of its proliferation of strawberry fields and dairy farms.
Read More
Plant Damage From the Winter Storm
The recent ice storm left nursery owners scrambling to save as many plants as they could. Will damaged plants and trees survive? Many plant and tree-owners still don’t know the answer.
David Roach Nursery in Sterlington had some damage to their plants from the storm but worked day and night to save most of their inventory.
Read More
Aquaponics Association Nominates Five Experts for USDA Advisory Committee, One From La.
The Aquaponics Association nominated five aquaponics experts to serve on the USDA’s new Advisory Committee on Urban & Innovative Agriculture.
The 12-person committee will advise the Secretary of Agriculture on the development of policies and outreach relating to urban, indoor, and other emerging agricultural production practices, as well as identify any barriers to urban agriculture. This Advisory Committee is a component of the USDA’s new Office of Urban & Innovative Agriculture, created by the 2018 Farm Bill.
Read More
2021 Mid-South Agricultural Labor Virtual Seminar Tuesday, March 9, 2021
Due to the COVID - 19 virus, the 2021 Mid South Agricultural Labor Seminar will be conducted this year as a Zoom Virtual Seminar on Tuesday, March 9, 2021 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. There is no registration fee to attend. This year, with new employer responsibilities due to the COVID virus, this year’s topics will focus on important current issues such as COVID pay, OSHA Regulations and Reporting Requirements and Housing.
Read More
USDA Extends Application Deadline for the Quality Loss Adjustment Program
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is extending the deadline from March 5 to April 9 for agricultural producers to apply for the Quality Loss Adjustment (QLA) Program because of recent winter storms and some clarifications to program rules. This program assists producers who suffered crop quality losses due to qualifying 2018 and 2019 natural disasters.
Read More
New Rapid Test Available For Fusarium Wilt In Watermelon
Fusarium wilt, caused by a soilborne fungus, is one of the most damaging diseases of watermelons worldwide. Since it was discovered in 1894, it’s been a battle for producers to manage through crop rotation and chemical fungicides.
The fungus is persistent in both seedless and seeded varieties and its spores can last for many years in the soil.
Read More
Louisiana Ag Commissioner Surveys Storm Damage in Forest Hill
Louisiana Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain stopped by the heart of the state’s nursery industry on Monday, March 1 to survey damage from the hurricanes and ice storm.
Strain visited Doug Young Nursery in Forest Hill to talk to nursery owners and growers about the impact of the damage from Hurricanes Laura and Delta, the winter storm two weeks ago and the pandemic.
Read More
Nailing Down Better Cover Crop Performance
Even though cover crop acreage in the U.S. has doubled to nearly 10 million acres in the last several years, the industry itself is very young as applied to today’s cropping systems.
Farmers often find it challenging to sort out which species and varieties of covers work best in their type of farm operation and climate. Often they rely on crop variety trials to make informed decisions, but some farmers have complained the trials included varieties that are no longer commercially available.
Read More
Where We Are in the Garden Calendar
If anything good came from February's hard freeze it was that we got a hard garden reset, putting an exclamation point on winter and our attention can now turn to spring.
As the day's slowly get longer we have a chance to start getting ready for our spring and summer crops and getting those planted and in the ground.
Read More
