The 2023 Projected Costs and Returns (crop enterprise budgets) have been posted to the LSU AgCenter website. To access the enterprise budgets, please click on the desired “Crops” tab followed by the “Budget” icon. T
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LSU Ag Center experts say the recent freezes were disruptive to the sugar cane industry. Sugar cane specialist Kenneth Gravois the crops now being harvested experienced what he calls a killing freeze.
“We’ve bred some cold tolerance into sugar cane but nothing that can withstand the 16, 17, you know mid-twenty-degree nights that we’ve had,” Gravois said.
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In every parish of Louisiana, groups of feral pigs roam the countryside.
The packs of pigs, called sounders, are extraordinarily destructive. They devour crops, dig up trees and eat food that other animals depend upon for survival.
“They’re omnivores,” said Dr. Jim LaCour, state wildlife veterinarian with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. “They’ll eat anything with a calorie.”
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Last week’s cold weather brings concerns to farmers and restaurants that are getting ready for crawfish season.
“Supply has basically been shut off with these freezing temperatures because we need the crawfish to cooperate. We need them to go into the trap. So when it’s this cold, they just don’t move,” said Greg Lutz, who studies aquaculture and teaches at LSU.
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The invasive Mexican rice borer (Eoreuma loftini) has become increasingly problematic in Louisiana in recent years and threatens both rice and sugarcane, the two most important crops in the southern part of the state. Adult moths lay eggs on grasses and larvae feed internally within stems hindering plant growth and damaging crop yields.
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Avoyelles Parish is one of 11 parishes in Louisiana designated as disaster areas by the U.S. Department of Agriculture due to excessive rains in the second half of 2022.
The potential financial aid that farmers, especially local ones, can receive could be crucial for some families already anticipating a significant loss.
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2022 Louisiana Farm Bureau Queen Allison Powell and former Louisiana Farm Bureau Queen an current Queen Sugar LXXIX Avery Hebert will be featured on the Louisiana Celebration Riverboat float during the Rose Parade on the morning of Monday, Jan. 2 in Pasadena, Calif.
The float will depict a Louisiana icon — the riverboat or paddlewheel steamboat – decorated entirely with flowers, leaves and seeds.
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For the better part of a decade, people in the drinks industry predicted—at times with breathless enthusiasm—that fresh cane spirits were poised to become the next big thing.
Olivia Stewart, president of Oxbow Estate Rum, recently added an agricole-style rum to the operation’s lineup. She hopes to create an A.O.C.-style designation for Louisiana sugarcane and spirits. The goal is not just to release notable cane spirits, she says, but to support the Louisiana sugarcane industry overall.
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The Louisiana Agricultural Technology & Management Conference sponsored by the Louisiana Agricultural Consultants Association will be held Wednesday morning through noon Friday, February 8-10, 2023 at Paragon Casino Resort in Marksville, LA.
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American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall commented today on the Senate confirmation of Doug McKalip to serve as Chief Agricultural Negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
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The American Sugar Alliance congratulates Alexis Taylor on her Senate confirmation to serve as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs.
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Agricultural producers in 11 parishes who suffered losses due to excessive rains that occurred from June 1 through November 2, 2022, may be eligible for assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA).
Many areas of the state, including Louisiana’s greatest row crop-producing parishes, suffered 18 or more inches of rain within just a few days.
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“Sustainable is the buzzword,” said Jeff Durand, holding out a single stalk of rice—roots splayed out and covered in dirt. “But our main goal is to be efficient.”
When Jeff and I met in October, the fields were being flooded for the crawfish season. Dozens of traps were piled high in the trails cleared out between fields.
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The apple snail, Pomacea maculata, is a global invasive rice pest. Within the past decade, the apple snail has established itself in Louisiana but has only recently begun infesting rice farms in the southwestern region. Adult snails have large brown-green or gold shells and lay large pink egg masses. Their fast-reproductive rate and voracious appetite allow the snails to reach high population densities in natural bodies of water as well as in rice and crawfish ponds.
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Farmers in 11 Louisiana parishes and another 30 parishes and counties in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are eligible for disaster aid from the USDA. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack sent a letter to La. Governor John Bel Edwards dated December 20, 2022 that Loss Assessment Reports showed sufficient losses in those 11 parishes to warrant a secretarial disaster declaration.
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