State

Crystal Besse, left, director of the LSU AgCenter Louisiana Farm to School Program, walks through a squash field with Opelousas farmers Betty and John Chenier. Photo provided by the Louisiana Farm to School Program

Crystal Besse, left, director of the LSU AgCenter Louisiana Farm to School Program, walks through a squash field with Opelousas farmers Betty and John Chenier. Photo provided by the Louisiana Farm to School Program

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Winter squash is November’s ‘Louisiana Harvest of the Month’

Rebecca Chaisson
Friday, November 4, 2022
Native Americans taught the Puritan settlers many things about life in America, including how to grow and prepare winter squash — a food they had never seen before but that would soon gain popularity and become a regular seasonal planting.

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Loggers prayed as fervently as farmers

Rebecca Chaisson
Friday, November 4, 2022
In the late 1800s, before narrow-gauge railroads crisscrossed the piney woods of southwest Louisiana, loggers prayed just as fervently as farmers for just the right amount of rain. It wasn’t because they wanted the trees to grow. It was so that they could get their logs to the sawmills.
Anthocyanin pigments are responsible for purple and maroon colors of leaves in fall. (Photos by Heather Kirk-Ballard/LSU AgCenter)

Anthocyanin pigments are responsible for purple and maroon colors of leaves in fall. (Photos by Heather Kirk-Ballard/LSU AgCenter)

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The science of fall foliage color change

Rebecca Chaisson
Friday, November 4, 2022
Shorter, cooler days bring brilliant foliage color changes for many trees and shrubs in fall. This time of year can be very beautiful as green leaves give way to brilliant colors of gold, orange, maroon, red and yellow. The reason for this color change?

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Nonprofits clean up ‘dirty little secret’ of oil and gas industry: abandoned wells

(not verified)
Friday, November 4, 2022
The following story was first published by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. Curtis Shuck stumbled upon what he calls one of the oil and gas industry’s “dirty little secrets” while visiting Montana for a work-related trip in 2019.
Election Day is Tuesday.

Election Day is Tuesday.

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John Kennedy for Senate

Rebecca Chaisson
Friday, November 4, 2022
John Kennedy was raised in Zachary, and graduated from Zachary High School. He graduated magna cum laude in political science, philosophy and economics from Vanderbilt University and was president of his senior class.

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Should Louisiana ditch the sales tax?

(not verified)
Friday, November 4, 2022
With no personal income tax and booming economies, Texas, Florida and Tennessee are once again drawing attention from Louisiana lawmakers who are wondering if eliminating income tax could create the same boom in their state.

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Jobless rates are at record low

Rebecca Chaisson
Monday, October 31, 2022
Unemployment rates in the state and in the Tri-Parish area are at record lows, according to data for September released Friday by the Louisiana Workforce Commission. St. Landry Parish’s September unemployment rate was 4.4%, down from 5.5% in September 2021 and down from August’s 4.8% rate.
Stickers, also known as stickerweed, spurweed and burweed, germinate in lawns in the fall and produce painful stickers in the spring. (Photo by Ron Strahan/LSU AgCenter)

Stickers, also known as stickerweed, spurweed and burweed, germinate in lawns in the fall and produce painful stickers in the spring. (Photo by Ron Strahan/LSU AgCenter)

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Stop stickerweed before it’s too late

Rebecca Chaisson
Friday, October 28, 2022
Nothing spoils a nice barefooted walk through the lawn more than stickerweed. Also known as spurweed, stickers or burweed, seeds germinate in the fall and winter months in lawns, particularly where the turf is thin or patchy. When lawns go dormant in the winter, weed problems become evident.

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Pete, six or seven ghosts, and me

Rebecca Chaisson
Friday, October 28, 2022
Here is why I believe there may be something to at least some of the ghost stories that we hear at this time of year. In 1998, photographer Pete Piazza and I spent weeks driving all across south Louisiana, gathering material and taking photographs for the book Our Acadiana.