(Distributed 07/31/13) HAMMOND, La. – The LSU AgCenter held a training meeting on July 29 for county agents and Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry personnel outlining the proper steps homeowners with citrus should take if they believe their trees are infected with citrus canker disease.

(Distributed 07/25/13) WINNSBORO, La. – The LSU AgCenter Macon Ridge Research Station will host a pest management and crop production field day Sept. 5.

(Distributed 07/10/13) BATON ROUGE, La. – Fifteen people from the LSU AgCenter have won awards in the annual competition of the Association for Communication Excellence, an international professional organization.

(Distributed 07/29/13) BATON ROUGE, La. – Home insulation was one of the hot topics of conversation during an open house at the LSU AgCenter LaHouse Home and Landscape Resource Center on July 27.

(Distributed 07/26/13)BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU AgCenter Food Incubator has turned out to be more popular than expected when it was first established in December 2012. Already, 19 clients are taking advantage of the incubator’s services, even though the processing kitchen facilities in Ingram Hall on campus won’t be open until Aug. 1.

(Distributed 07/26/13) PALMETTO, La. – An LSU AgCenter plant pathologist warned farmers at the St. Landry Parish rice and soybean field day on July 25 that fungicide-resistant disease has been found in soybeans in some areas of the state.

(Distributed 07/26/13) Ornamental sweet potatoes are popular warm-season annuals for adding foliage color to the summer landscape. The original varieties include plants with leaves that are chartreuse-lime green (Marguerite), blackish purple (Blackie, Black Beauty, Ace of Spades) and tricolored (Pink Frost).

(Distributed 07/26/13) NEW IBERIA, La. – Sugarcane farmers attending the Iberia, St. Mary and Vermillion parishes field day got to see how an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is currently being used to help growers be more efficient in crop production.

(Distributed 07/26/13) VICKSBURG, Miss. – A tourism workshop on Aug. 13 will be aimed at attracting international tourists to local communities.

(Distributed 07/26/13) ST. JOSEPH, La. – Because cars can now “talk” and phones can play movies, it’s only natural that farm equipment would communicate with satellites to make farmers money.

(Distributed 07/26/13) HAMMOND, La. – One of the programs at the LSU AgCenter, “Louisiana Yards and Neighborhoods,” was developed several years ago to inform home gardeners about sustainable landscaping and home horticulture practices.

(Distributed 07/17/13) WEST MONROE, La. – Results from the 44th annual Louisiana 4-H and FFA State Horse Show held July 9-13, 2013, have been released.

(Distributed 07/24/13) BATON ROUGE, La. – Lee Southern, LSU AgCenter professor emeritus, has been chosen as an American Society of Animal Science Fellow for his contributions to the studies of swine and poultry nutrition.

(Distributed 07/22/13) POLLOCK, La. – The LSU AgCenter’s Grant Walker 4-H Educational Center is bringing computer literacy opportunities to central Louisiana.

(Distributed 07/22/13) A beef cattle and forage field day will be held Sept. 12 at the LSU AgCenter Dean Lee Research Station and Extension Center on U.S. Highway 71 south of Alexandria.

(Distributed 07/22/13) ST. MARTINVILLE, La. – Sugarcane growers in St. Martin Parish met to get updates on the current growing season July 19 at the 51st Annual LSU AgCenter Sugarcane Field Day for St. Landry, Lafayette and St. Martin parishes.

Louisiana’s state tree is the bald cypress. This tree goes by the scientific name of Taxodium distichum. It is one of our most distinguished native trees and is widely used in Louisiana landscapes.

(Distributed 07/19/13) ALEXANDRIA, La. – LSU AgCenter researchers are continuing in their quest to find solutions to the No. 1 fungal disease in Louisiana soybeans – Cercospora leaf blight.

(Distributed 07/19/13) ST. GABRIEL, La. – Louisiana’s unusual winter and spring weather affected this year’s sugarcane crop. “We had a global warming January and an ice age March,” said Kenneth Gravois, LSU AgCenter sugarcane specialist. “We went from a crop that was a month ahead of schedule to a month behind.”

(Distributed 07/19/13) HAMMOND, La. – All ornamental plants benefit from mulching when it’s done correctly. Good mulching can have several beneficial effects on plants, soil and the surrounding area.

(Distributed 07/18/13) RAYVILLE, La. – This year’s rice crop has defied expectations from earlier this year, LSU AgCenter rice specialist Johnny Saichuk said at the Northeast Louisiana Rice Field Day on July 17.

(Distributed 07/17/13) BATON ROUGE, La. – Louisiana turtle farmers have provided research funds to the LSU AgCenter in their continuing efforts to convince federal agencies that baby turtles are safe as pets for humans and should be allowed in interstate commerce.

(Distributed 07/12/13) Turk’s Cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) is a pass-along kind of old garden plant that still has great potential in gardens and landscapes of today. These plants have recently been named Texas Superstars.

(Distributed 07/12/13) HAMMOND, La. – As we reach the middle of summer in Louisiana, we need to keep in mind the importance of irrigating our landscape plants. When we irrigate, it is important to apply water needed and efficiently. In many cases, plants are commonly over-watered rather than under-watered.

(Distributed 07/09/13) BATON ROUGE, La. – Cercospora leaf blight is the No. 1 fungal disease in Louisiana’s No. 1 row crop – soybeans. The emerging disease, which has appeared only in the past five to 10 years, has no resistance in any soybean lines, according to LSU AgCenter plant pathologist Zhi-Yuan Chen.

Angelonia is a great bedding plant for the warm season. Angelonias come in white, pink, blue, lavender, lavender pink and raspberry flower colors. Some folks call angelonias “summer snapdragons.” They come in both seed-propagated and vegetatively propagated varieties. The Serena series is a Louisiana Super Plant from spring 2011.

(Distributed 07/05/13) HAMMOND, La. – The LSU AgCenter has implemented a landscape evaluation trial of more than 40 varieties of hardy hibiscus, primarily Hibiscus moscheutos, at the Hammond Research Station. These are what we typically refer to as the dinner plate hibiscus. They sometimes go by the old variety name, Disco Belle.

(Distributed 07/05/13) FENTON, La. – The rice harvest in south Louisiana, delayed by a couple of weeks, should begin soon. And it’s not too early for farmers to decide if they will grow a second crop, an LSU AgCenter agronomist advised at two field days Tuesday (July 2).

(Distributed 07/03/13) BATON ROUGE, La. – The National Sweetpotato Collaborators Conference, a project that includes LSU AgCenter faculty, has received the 2013 Excellence in Multistate Research Award from the Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.

(Distributed 07/02/13) BATON ROUGE, La. – A new disease of citrus called citrus canker has been detected in New Orleans by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Plant Protection and Quarantine division, according to LSU AgCenter plant scientist Raj Singh.

(Distributed 07/02/13) NEW ORLEANS – Since 1998, Master Gardeners in the Greater New Orleans area have been getting involved in projects that help keep the region green. The first Master Gardener classes in the area were held in Orleans, St. Bernard and Jefferson parishes.

(Distributed 07/02/13) WINNSBORO, La. – Farmers have finished planting sweet potatoes, and acreage continues to decline. Tara Smith, coordinator of the LSU AgCenter Sweet Potato Research Station, said Louisiana has about 7,500 acres, which is down 25 percent from last year and less than half of what farmers were planting 10 years ago.

(Distributed 07/01/13) PALMETTO, La. – A soybean and rice field day will be held at the Charlie Fontenot farm in St. Landry Parish on July 25 starting at 8 a.m.