Tagged: LSU AgCenter

The head of the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service is retiring after more than 34 years with the LSU AgCenter.

Paul Coreil said Friday that he will leave the administration July 1.

He will continue with other national and state committee and professional obligations until Sept. 15.

Coreil has been vice chancellor of the AgCenter and director of the extension service for 12 years.

The LSU AgCenter has hired a veteran food consultant to organize a food business incubator.

Gaye Sandoz, who most recently was with Edible Enterprises — a food business incubator in in Norco — hopes to have the incubator fully developed over the next 12 months.

The AgCenter's incubator will be the second such facility in Louisiana.

Headquartered on LSU's Baton Rouge campus, incubator tenants will have access to expertise of LSU faculty and students.

LSU AgCenter economist Kurt Guidry says good weather over the next several weeks could do a lot to reduce a preliminary estimate of $100 million in crop damage from Hurricane Isaac.

He says the preliminary figure is less than damage from last year's drought.

Some farmers lost all of some crops. Guidry says about 250 acres of vegetables were reported as a total loss, and losses were high on another 50 acres or so. But 7,000 to 8,000 acres of vegetables were unharmed.

David Constant has been named head of the department of biological and agricultural engineering, a joint position shared between the LSU AgCenter and the LSU College of Engineering.

Constant, most recently dean of the LSU Graduate School, has been on the LSU faculty since 1984. He holds the Humphreys T. Turner Professorship in the department of civil and environmental engineering and has served as associate dean and then interim dean in the College of Engineering.

LSU AgCenter faculty will offer information ranging from beef cattle management to pruning timber at the Hill Farm Field Day set Oct. 9.

Activities begin with registration at 9 a.m., said LSU AgCenter forestry professor Michael Blazier.

Topics to be discussed by LSU AgCenter research and extension faculty during the general station field tour include forage management, beef cattle research, the poultry demonstration house project and planting and thinning strategies for loblolly pine, Blazier said.