The LSU AgCenter’s Iberia Research Station will host the St. Mary and Iberia parishes sugarcane field day starting at 4:30 p.m. on July 24.

The event will include presentations on recommended and newly released sugarcane varieties, disease control, research on the potential of sweet sorghum for biofuels, the potential threat of the sugarcane borer and fallow-land weed control.

The event also will include a visit to the nearby Ronald Hebert Jr. farm for an LSU AgCenter Master Farmer program on the effects of fallow-land runoff on water quality.

It will conclude with a dinner and meeting at the Ward 8 Recreation Center in Jeanerette with talks by Dr. Mike Strain, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, and Jim Simon of the American Sugar Cane League.

Hebert, a sugarcane producer in the Jeanerette area, said the LSU AgCenter’s Iberia Research Station serves an important role to area sugarcane producers.

“Just having the research done in the vicinity where the crop is grown is crucial,” Hebert said.

And variety development in the area will help farmers’ chances of success, he said. “We live or die by the new varieties.

“It fits our rotation and gives us ideas on how to better our operations,” Hebert said.