(For Release On Or After 09/28/07) As we move toward October, it is not too early to make plans for houseplants that spent the summer outdoors. You will need to bring them back inside when it starts to get cold, and there are a variety of jobs you can look at doing now.

(Distributed 08/29/07) The LSU AgCenter has extended a popular educational program for current and potential operators of child care businesses in parishes severely affected by the 2005 hurricanes.

(For Release On Or After 09/21/07) Bromeliads are a beautiful group of tropical plants. With their many shapes and colors and their ease of culture, once you have one bromeliad you are likely to want more.

(Distributed 08/29/07) To winterize Southern, warm-season lawns, apply a fertilizer with more potash than nitrogren. Potash is represented by the third number on a fertilizer bag, while nitrogen is shown as the first.

(For Release On Or After 09/14/07) In late summer gardeners need to think about two important points of landscape maintenance – fertilizing and pruning.

(For Release On Or After 09/07/07) September is a transitional month in the vegetable garden. Toward the end of this month we should see some relief from the intense heat of mid- to late summer. Still, September can be quite warm, and daytime highs in the 80s are common well into October.

(Distributed 08/29/07) Dr. Mike Salassi, an agricultural economist, and Dr. Ben Legendre, a sugarcane specialist and interim head of the Audubon Sugar Institute, were among a team that won a national U.S. Department of Agriculture service award for their efforts in helping the sugarcane industry recover from the disaster caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

(Distributed 08/28/07) Longtime faculty member Dr. D. Allen Rutherford has been named the new director of the School of Renewable Natural Resources. He took over July 1, 2007, from William Kelso, who had served as interim director after the retirement of Bob Blackmon in 2005.

(Distributed 08/28/07) Participants heard about a variety of studies involving cotton, corn and soybeans during the recent Dean Lee Research and Extension Center Row Crop Field Day.

(TV News 08/27/07) The U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the new farm bill in late July. Farmers were hoping for an extension of the 2002 farm bill. That is not quite what they have so far in the 2007 bill, but an LSU AgCenter economist says Louisiana producers could find some satisfaction with the current draft. (Runtime: 1 minute, 46 seconds)