Excessive rain and other weather anomalies made 2015 a challenging year for Louisiana’s horticulture industry, which includes vegetable and fruit crops, pecans, sweet potatoes, sod farming, nursery crops, landscape contracting and retail garden centers, says LSU AgCenter horticulturist Allen Owings.
“Although these businesses are doing well, excessive rainfall last spring, along with cloudy days and two months of cooler-than-normal weather, hampered planting and spring sales last year,” Owings says in an LSU AgCenter news release.
The saturated spring was followed by a dry, blistering summer, during which temperatures soared to the mid-90s for about six weeks straight and only about a half inch of rainfall was recorded, Owings says.
“The fall was going well until rainfall in late October affected sweet potato harvesting, sod harvesting and retail garden center sales,” he says.
Wet conditions hindered harvesting in the spring and late fall on Louisiana sod farms, says AgCenter turfgrass specialist Ron Strahan.
“However, sod producers had a good year overall as sales remained steady and transportation costs continued to fall,” Strahan said, adding that acreage of sod grown in Louisiana has increased the past five years.
A few sod growers and landscape contractors have expanded their businesses by installing athletic field turf and maintaining turfgrass on high school sports fields, Strahan says.
“This is an ever-increasing business and continues to expand.”
Garden centers had a less-than-stellar year in terms of plant sales, Owings says. Most bedding plants and shrubs are sold in spring from mid-March through Mother’s Day, and weather conditions led to declines in spring sales in 2015. Fall sales also were less than typical after hot weather and drought conditions during summer and early fall.
Larger wholesale nurseries in Louisiana are doing well and even expanding production acreage due to plant shortages and gaps in inventory, Owings says. On the other hand, small and midsize nursery growers are struggling more to find their place in the market.
“Nursery grower numbers in Louisiana are down 30 percent from 10 years ago,” he says.
Rain also slowed sweet potato planting in the spring and delayed harvesting in the fall, according to AgCenter sweet potato specialist Myrl Sistrunk. However, production in 2015 was 9,300 acres—more than in recent years—with yields at 450 bushels per acre.
The spring season also was difficult for commercial vegetable growers, says AgCenter vegetable specialist Kiki Fontenot. Quality and yield were down, and disease problems were more prevalent than in most years.
