Agriculture

This year’s rice crop is progressing well, and the recent Tropical Storm Cristobal had little effect, an LSU AgCenter rice expert said at the Evangeline Parish rice field day on June 11.
AgCenter rice specialist Dustin Harrell said March temperatures were warmer than normal and were ideal for young rice, but April brought three cold fronts that stressed the plants.
“If that’s the worst thing we see, then we’re going to have a great year,” he said.
The rice plants also benefitted from warm May temperatures, although hail damaged fields in a few instances.

With crawfish season winding down, an LSU AgCenter crawfish specialist has written guidelines for stocking new ponds.
“Now and the next few weeks would be a good time to stock ponds,” said Mark Shirley, also a Louisiana Sea Grant agent. “Most of the rice crop is tall and dense enough for crawfish to hide under.”
But he said that in most cases, adding stock to an existing pond is not necessary. If the pond had mostly small peeler crawfish this season, adding additional stock will only make overcrowding worse and result in further stunting.

Gov. John Bel Edwards and the South Louisiana Rail Facility announced Thursday that SLRF will develop an $11.6 million rice mill in Jefferson Davis Parish.
Located at the Lacassine Industrial Park, SLRF is owned by the Jefferson Davis Parish Police Jury and can handle up to 25,000 bushels of rice per hour for storage and export.