University of Louisiana at Cade

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Ever visit the University's Experimental Farm at Cade? Well, if you haven't your chance is coming up on Oct. 12. The Farm will be hosting an Open House from 9 a.m. to noon as part of Atchalafaya Days, which is an effort to bring awareness to the Atchafalaya Basin.

Four learning stations - crawfish, cattle, sugar cane and a general info station - will be on display during the Open House. A birding field trip will also take place that day from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m.

Go out and visit Cade Farm and learn more about the amazing research being conducted there. Other event locations for Atchafalaya Days include Henderson's Atchafalaya Heritage Festival, Charenton's Heritage Days and Lake Fausse Pointe State Park's canoeing experience.

For more info on the Open House at Cade Farm, contact Dr. Jay Huner at 394-7508.

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HOME FOR WOOD DUCKS AT CADE FARM

The UL Crawfish Research Center has initiated a project to provide winter waterfowl habitat at the University's Experimental Farm near Cade. Dr. Jay Huner, director of the Center, said a water control structure known as a 'drop pipe' has been installed on one side of a15-acre wooded wetland on the north side of the farm.

This unit permits farm personnel to retain water in the wetland area from November until March when the trees and other vegetation is dormant and tolerant of flooding. Approximately five acres will hold three to 12 inches of water intended to attract resident and wintering Wood Ducks although wintering Mallards and American Wigeon are expected to visit from time to time.

Huner noted the wetland area also provides habitat for at least 100 species of birds ranging from hummingbirds to hawks, 15 mammals including squirrels, rabbits, mink, coyotes and numerous species of snakes, frogs and salamanders.

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American Forage and Grassland Council (AFGC) has scheduled its annual conference for April 26-29 at the Lafayette Hilton in Lafayette, Louisiana.

The 2003 conference includes several days of educational seminars, research presentations, contests, professional tours and field demonstrations. Plus, a trade show features exhibitors offering forage and livestock products and services. Forage harvesting and handling equipment will also be on display in the Hilton parking lot.

The 2003 AFGC Annual Conference theme is “Forages: The Forgotten Crop.”

On Saturday, April 26, people arriving for the conference will be able to attend the Festival International de Louisiane, which was recently selected as one of the “top 10 festivals in the world.”

Transportation will be provided for AFGC attendees from the Hilton to the festival. Vans will leave at the top of every hour from 10:00 a.m. to midnight.

Registration for the conference begins at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, April 27. Attendees can choose between two professional tours in the afternoon.

One tour will involve a showcase of south Louisiana agriculture. This tour will make stops at rice, crawfish, alligator and beef cattle farms.

Another tour will travel to the University of Louisiana Cade Farm and look at demonstrations involving water quality, management intensive grazing and no-till establishment of ryegrass.

Both tours will end up at LSU's Iberia Research Station. The tours will conclude with an evening meal and an AFGC auction.

Participants can register for either one day or for the whole conference.

For more information on the 2003 AFGC Conference, contact Dana Tucker at 1-800-944-2342 or check out the conference website at www.afgc.org

Anyone with an interest in forages is encouraged to attend this conference.

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CADE — The University of Louisiana Experimental Farm is 600 acres of crawfish, cattle, horses and farmland just outside of Cade. A big focus of research there is not what’s on the farm itself but what’s leaving it.

Agricultural run-off — the sediment, fertilizers and pesticides that wash off land with rain and irrigation — is a hot issue among environmental regulators.

At a field day at the experimental farm on Thursday, researchers showed off some of the projects they are working on to keep run-off in check.

“It’s very important that we know what’s going into these streams,” said farm operations manager Mark Simon.

One idea: “a vegetation filter strip.” It’s a little piece of land filled with thick grass to filter out sediment and fertilizers in the run-off before it makes it to a waterway.

“We’re simply taking run-off and running it through the vegetation –– not complicated,” UL Lafayette professor Terry Clement told a group a farmers gathered around a grassy patch near an experimental sugar cane field.

At a series of crawfish ponds nearby, a study is under way looking at how different plants affect the silt content of water in crawfish ponds.

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Richard Burgess
rburgess@theadvertiser.com

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At the University of Louisiana's farm in Cade, agriculture concepts come alive

Pastures promote learning>

LOUISIANA Cade — There is no such thing as office hours working amid nearly 300 cattle, a herd of horses, crawfish ponds and fields of research on the 600 acres that make up the University ofLouisiana farm.

The cows don’t wait to be milked between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. First call for 50 dairy cows is 4 a.m. They get milked again at 2 p.m. Here, there is no such thing as a vacation from the production or research.

Research is being conducted that deals with crawfish, climate changes, soil quality, best grazing management practices and organic farming. The outdoor classroom gives UL Lafayette students and others a hands-on look at a working farm.

“Where else can a student study a working dairy, sugar cane production and crawfish?” said Jay Huner, director of the Crawfish Research Center, which is housed at the farm.

The farm is known simply as “Cade Farm,” but the key to its purpose lies more in its formal name, the “Model Sustainable Agricultural Complex,” where the best management and conservation practices are researched and used.

The university was given the 600 acres back in 1978 by the W.J. Bernard family. In recent years, the farm has revamped its practices to become a resource to farmers in the area interested in conservation.

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Marsha Sills
msills@theadvertiser.com