Just a heads up to anybody in the louisiana area or willing driving distance. The folks at LSU and I are having some ginger programs at Burden Research Station on August 5th and 6th. The 5th is a friday night and is a catered dinner featuring two programs on the search for new gingers. These are focused on collecting trips in central and south america, and one on south east asia. I will be doing the "Americas" one, and John Banta of Alva, Florida will be doing S.E. Asia. It should be a great event for any ginger enthusiast. There will be limited plant sales to those participants (ie they get first crack at the rare stuff since there is a charge for the friday night event).

Saturdays lectures are open to the public on a first come first serve basis (free) and will be more basic talks on growing ginger and ornamental bananas in the south. John Banta will also give a talk on breeding the peacock gingers (Kaempferia). The talks and plant sale schedule are available on my site as well as LSU's (lsu link below). If anybody has any questions feel free to ask.

Tim Chapman

Here is a link that might be useful: LSU's info page for the ginger event