The 2015 Louisiana Agricultural Consultants’ Association annual meeting, the Louisiana Agricultural Technology & Management Conference will convene again at Paragon Casino Resort in Marksville, La. The conference begins with lunch sponsored by BASF Corporation on Wednesday, Feb. 11 and ends with recertification for consultants and commercial applicators at noon on Friday, Feb. 13. Certain sessions will qualify for CCA CEUs.

There will a pre-conference symposium on at 8:30 a.m., Wednesday, featuring irrigation managementPre-registration will be necessary for this workshop due to limited space.

The casino hotel will be the host hotel and is under the same roof as the convention center where the meetings will be held. The casino resort offers personal play golf on the Tamahka Trails Championship Audubon Trials Course (par 71), Spa La Vie (12,000 square feet of spa treatment and water therapy), a heated in-door pool with swim-up bar, and a tri-movie theater with first-run Hollywood smash hits. Private poker games or card game tables are also available with advance notification.

Unique shopping opportunities are also available inside the hotel atrium, and extraordinary dining, from fine dining to casual, are just around the corner at resort restaurants and in the immediate area.

A highlight of the meeting this year, BASF will sponsor Application Technology presented by Dennis R. Gardisser of WRK of Arkansas, LLC. Gardisser is currently involved in agricultural chemical application research, testing, product development, drift evaluations, training seminars, fly-in clinics, literature development, and education. His company specializes in all types of chemical application technology from a variety of platforms. Primary emphases are agricultural chemical applications (pesticides and plant nutrients — aerial and ground), processing (grain storage, drying, and handling), precision agriculture GIS/GPS, and agricultural fencing systems.

LACA has 34 sustaining members, 19 of which are also conference sponsors. The association’s is to unify and support independent agricultural consultants and to provide a forum for information exchange within the agricultural community. Sustaining members help to make this possible through contributions to the association.

A silent auction and gun raffle will be held to benefit the Ray and Dorothy Young Endowed Assistantship for Row Crop IPM at the meeting. Learn about this endowment and access silent auction donation forms on the LACA website, www.laca1.org. LACA voting members will be selling raffle tickets prior to and during the annual meeting. The silent auction will be held during the Networking Social on Wednesday evening and the raffle winners will be announced during the closing session on Friday morning.

For more information on the silent auction/raffle, contact Travis Vallee, LACA president-elect, at [email protected] or (318) 451-3776 or Denise Wright, LACA executive director, at [email protected] or (337) 945-3694. Contact Wright also for further information on the upcoming conference. The preliminary program, registration form, hotel memorandum, and other conference information can be found at www.laca1.org.