Registration for the 2023 Forestry Forum in Northeast Louisiana has begun. On-site registration begins at 8 a.m. Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, at the West Monroe Convention Center in the Trenton Room. The program begins at 8:30 a.m. Early registration fee is $15, which ends Friday, Jan. 6. Registration at the door is $20. Checks can be made payable to LSU AgCenter and include Forestry Forum in the memo portion of the check. You can download the registration form, fill it out and mai

It is a matter of perspective, we can either look at the glass as half full or half empty. Either way it is the same glass, it just depends upon how we choose to look at it. If you are thirsty, you can be grateful for half a glass of water, or you can be resentful that it wasn’t a full glass of water. That is how life, particularly in the woods, can be. Loggers and truckers tend to be “glass half full” optimists. There are few “easy” days in the woods or hauling timber. The c

More than a century ago, forestry was a lot different. Many of the old-growth forests were overharvested, leaving open fields with few trees remaining. Then, in 1947, the Louisiana Forestry Association began its efforts to promote reforestation where forests had been clearcut and sustainability once those trees had grown large enough to harvest. Throughout the decades since, the LFA has promoted sustainable forestry, becoming associated with the Sustainable Forestry Initiativ

With revisions to its Standards, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) wants landowners and forest managers to be aware of what species on their land that might be imperiled. SFI updated its standards in 2022. To help forest landowners, the Louisiana Forestry Association's State Implementation Committee created a panel to help facilitate a way for landowners to know. Lo and behold, SIC member Mark Williams with Boise Cascade discovered that the Louisiana Department of Wil

BATON ROUGE — With no personal income tax and booming economies, Texas, Florida and Tennessee are again drawing attention from Louisiana lawmakers who are wondering if eliminating income tax could create the same boom in their state. During a House Ways and Means Committee meeting in September, lawmakers began studying the state’s taxes as part of a House resolution passed earlier this year. It tasks the committee with making recommendations to the Legislature about Louisiana

Fishing spiders, Dolomedes tenebrosus, are venomous, carnivorous and enormous. However, these spiders are not our enemy, and they do not eat our plants. They eat the bugs that do, as well as insects that sting and spread dreaded diseases, like mosquito larvae. These huge, but shy, spiders fear anything larger than themselves, so we are safe in their company. Although the sight of such a spider might startle us, we should treat them with respect. Simply give them time to scamp