In 2023, a severe drought and heat in South Louisiana caused major setbacks for crawfish farmers, with many crawfish and hatchlings perishing. The 2024 season reflected this loss, with lower availability and higher prices. According to LSU AgCenter’s Todd Fontenot, the upcoming season looks more promising, as the crawfish are emerging to better conditions.
Read MoreRyegrass is a winter annual that comes up from seed each year.
Two Midsouth Extension weed scientists say a fall residual herbicide application is the best way to get ahead of ryegrass.
For fall herbicide applications, farmers should read the label and be aware of any plant-back intervals.
Read MoreSeveral parishes, including East Feliciana Parish, were under a burn ban Wednesday due to a red flag warning.
The National Weather Service issued the warning because of a combination of low humidity, the low amount of rain over the past couple of weeks, and higher wind speeds, which make conditions for fires to spread quickly if they started.
Read MoreLouisiana experienced extremely dry summer and fall seasons in 2023. According to the National Integrated Drought Information System, the worst drought continued from June to late September in the southern U.S., including Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. This has put a strain on quality forage production
Read MoreThis time last year, the effects of south Louisiana's extended summer drought spelled bad news for area crawfish farmers.
It costs a lot of money to pump water into dry fields, and many crawfish and their hatchlings didn't make it through the abnormally hot and dry conditions of 2023. At the start of the 2024 crawfish season, these poor conditions were reflected in the price and availability of one of the region's most anticipated products.
Read MoreAgriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced additional assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help producers impacted by Hurricane Helene in the recovery process. USDA is announcing the counties that have triggered for payment under the Hurricane Insurance Protection-Wind Index (HIP-WI) endorsement for Hurricane Helene. As a result, Approved Insurance Providers (AIP) have 30 days to issue payments to producers, but AIPs typically issue payments much sooner.
Read MoreU.S. merchants shipped 1,125 metric tons of rice to Cuba in 2023. Considering that Cuba imports around 600,000 to 700,000 metric tons of rice per year, that may not seem like much of an accomplishment.
But it’s a 500% increase from the total of U.S. rice shipped to Cuba in 2022.
Read MoreA strong autumn cold front has swept through delivering a real taste of fall.
Unfortunately, that front pushed through as a 'dry' front. Given the current state of dryness/drought across Louisiana, conditions after the frontal passage will set that stage for increased wildfire threats.
Read MoreThe fire danger is growing increasingly worse across the ArkLaTex.
The latest to be added are Bossier and Natchitoches parishes.
Bossier Parish Police Jury President Philip Rodgers issued a state of emergency burn ban for the parish beginning Wednesday at the request of parish fire chiefs due to extreme heat and a lack of rainfall in the area.
Read MoreAccording to the findings of the 2020 Local Food Marketing Practices Survey, American farmers produced and sold $9 billion worth of edible commodities directly to consumers, retailers, institutions and intermediaries. This represented a 3% increase in direct food sales since 2015, with 33% of this economic activity being the result of direct-to-consumer food sales.
Read MoreWith the sugarcane harvest season in full swing, John Hebert, Agriculture Manager with the Louisiana Sugarcane Cooperative, expressed gratitude for the favorable conditions this season.
“Very blessed this season, especially when you compare it with the conditions we had with the weather last year,” Hebert stated.
Read MoreA pathogen capable of affecting crops is making its way to Arkansas and residents could unknowingly be spreading it.
Tar spot is a fungal disease that affects corn.
Travis Faskey, a University of Arkansas Plant Pathology Professor, says the pathogen is relatively new to the United States. He said it has a long history in Central America, but hurricanes brought it up to the states.
Read MoreThe National Cotton Council and its cooperating partners welcome all to the 2025 Beltwide Cotton Conferences January 14 through 16 (Tuesday- Thursday) at the New Orleans Marriott, New Orleans, LA. Three days of individual reports, panel discussions, hands on workshops and seminars are designed to provide attendees with information they need to help producers make key cotton production/marketing-related decisions.
Read MoreKids growing up on farms in southern Louisiana date themselves according to hurricanes and sugarcane variety releases, Louisiana State University sugarcane specialist Kenneth Gravois jokes. 2024 will be known as the year of Hurricane Francine, and hopefully only Francine, as sugarcane producers race tropical storm season to finish out harvest with minimal crop damage.
Hurricanes are not a new obstacle to sugarcane production. The very nature of a tropical crop both harvested and planted during hurricane season demands hardiness.
Read MoreSometimes an opportunity presents itself that is too good to pass up. In Tara and Josh Morris’ case, it was a series of several opportunities strung together that made their dreams of grazing cattle in southern Louisiana a reality.
Tara and Josh both got their feet wet in agriculture by working on research farms in college before they rented their first piece of land in 2016. They leased the then conventionally farmed field from a friend under the condition that they fix the fence.
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