The responsibilities of the Franklin Parish Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) Advisory Leadership Council are to represent their peers, identify needs and issues, identify opportunities for collaboration, be active in sharing their skills and knowledge to help the parish and understand Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service as a community resource. Minutes from the meeting can be found by clicking the link below.

Most Recent Meeting Date:
January 21, 2026
Extension Auditorium, Franklin Parish Courthouse

ANR Advisory Leadership Council Members

Franklin Parish ANR Advisory Leadership Council Minutes

The Franklin Parish ANR Row Crop Advisory Leadership Council met at the Scott Center on January 21, 2026, at 12 Noon. Present were Melanie Beavers, Johnathon Campbell, Bret Fletcher, Michael Liles, Davin McMurry, Mark Moroni, Ashley Peters, Chase Robbins, and Drew Wiggers. Dawson Kerns, LSU AgCenter Extension Entomologist, Stephen Ippolito, LSU AgCenter Weed Scientist, Dimitrios Pavlou, LSU AgCenter Irrigation Specialist and Anna Orfanou, LSU AgCenter Agronomist also attended. Carol Pinnell-Alison, Extension Agent-ANR Franklin Parish served as the facilitator.

The committee members were introduced. The role of the council was reviewed. Several publications were shared including minutes from the 2025 advisory meeting.

The members were asked to give input on educational program areas that needed to be addressed by the LSU AgCenter in the parish or statewide. A survey with various production practices for ranking was used to start the discussion process. The committee identified the top five issues. There were many other production practices that were considered important as noted in the survey. The overall discussion centered around having several bad cropping years in a row related to weather issues and low commodity prices in relation to high input costs.

• Continue to conduct on-farm variety demonstrations on producer farms and Official Variety Trials on Research Stations.
• Agronomic practices including fertilizer recommendations related to when to take soil samples, timing of applications, fertilizer rates and starter fertilizes, planting dates, seeding rates, row spacing, irrigation efficiency.
• Weed (Ryegrass and Johnsongrass), insect and disease pest management practices.
• Precision Agriculture - Use of Drones for management decisions.
• There was not further discussion, the meeting was adjourned at 2 p.m.

Visit the Franklin Parish website at www.lsuagcenter.com/franklin

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