Photo by Anthony Bailey, LSU AgCenter
Anna Timmerman, a horticulture agent for the Louisiana State University (LSU) AgCenter, had to think swiftly to deal with a salt wedge that was rising up the Mississippi River. She was particularly worried how the saltwater would affect Plaquemines Parish citrus producers.
“I had to learn very quickly — what to do and what to recommend in terms of salinity,” Timmerman said. “Our water table is saline, too.”
Timmerman has been named the new citrus point of contact for the LSU AgCenter. Along with her duties as a horticulture agent in the Greater New Orleans area, she now works with citrus producers in the state.
She received her master’s degree from LSU in the School of Plant, Environmental and Soil Sciences before joining the LSU AgCenter nine years ago. She had much knowledge about citrus and was frequently asked how to best care for it. But citrus in Louisiana can be tricky. HLB and citrus canker can cause severe damage. Hurricanes frequently hit the state, and there’s a yearly freeze risk.
SPEEDING UP PRODUCTION
To help growers cope, Timmerman has recently been doing research into precision citrus agriculture at Docville Farm in Violet, St. Bernard Parish. She produces a variety of citrus cultivars using a controlled environment system to grow the healthiest trees possible.
Inside a quarter-acre screenhouse, Timmerman has put in almost 300 container-grown trees and can alter the number of resources put into each plant. She is developing management practices that will limit the time it takes for a farmer to break even on a citrus orchard.
“In terms of labor efficiency, resource efficiency and producing a high volume of high-quality, fresh fruit in a small space, it seems really promising and cost effective,” Timmerman said of her research. “You’re actually at the break-even point by year three, where in a traditional orchard that’s really more like year seven or eight, because the trees are producing much earlier and much heavier in these systems.”
EXPANDING GROWER INTEREST
Timmerman has also worked to find more farmers willing to grow citrus. She has about 40 farmers she frequently speaks with and is working to increase that number.
Timmerman believes that with the amount of support New Orleans gives local growers, there will be a market for citrus. She said there are 34 farmers markets in the area, and fresh fruit consistently pulls visitors.
“If they can keep their trees healthy and productive using new growing technologies, then they have ready markets,” Timmerman concluded.
Source: LSU AgCenter
Share this Post