Thrips are early season insect pests of cotton in Louisiana.Injury to cotton seedlings resulting from thrips’ feeding can delay crop maturity and reduce yields.

In the Coastal Plain of northLouisiana, pastures of annual ryegrassand cereal rye, alone or in combination,are made in late summer and fall to reduce dairy and beef cattle wintersupplemental ration requirements and toenhance overall herd performance.

Blueberry production contributes to the local economies of several Louisiana communities, particularly in the northwest and southeast areas of the state. In 1997, blueberry production added $1.5 million to the state’s economy

Because the sorghum midge depends on flowering sorghum to lay its eggs, understanding how the length of the flowering period affects damage can aid in developing more effective programs to manage this key insect pest.

The sorghum midge is a key pest of grain sorghum in the United States and can cause serious yield losses in Louisiana.The adult midge is a small, red,gnat-like fly about 1.5 millimeters long.

Rice plants showing herbicide damage where no herbicides had been applied for several weeks were first found in 1991 in southwest Louisiana.

Annual ryegrass forage is grown onapproximately 300,000 acres in Louisiana each year. It is planted over the entire state on widely diverse soils.Significant variation in ryegrass performance occurs among these diverse production areas, and reduced forage yields on some soils can limit the benefit of ryegrass for livestock producers.

Before 1996, farmers controlled weeds following cotton emergence almost exclusively by directing herbicides underneath the canopy to minimize injury to the cotton plant.

Soon a typical home may include a termite detector aswell as a smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector,thanks to Gregg Henderson and Jian Chen of the Departmentof Entomology and Roger Laine of the Department ofBiochemistry.

A historic 150-year-old cotton warehouse on NewOrleans’ riverfront near the Garden District is the test site of a new patented bait system that holds promise of controlling the dreaded Formosan subterranean termite.