The Nicholls farm has allowed the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Barataria Terrebonne National Estuary Program rights to about 10 acres of its land to grow and produce plants for wetland restoration projects, according to Quentin Fontenot, assistant professor of biological sciences.Fontenot said that each organization has signed the proper documents in order to begin restoration projects, and they are currently in the process of taking their equipment to the farm.

Nicholls will not only be involved in growing plants, but also in testing different ecotypes of plants to see which ones would be best to use for coastal restoration plantings, according to Fontenot.

“Basically what we do is take the plants from different areas of the country and re-plant them near our coast and see which ones perform the best,” Fontenot said. “Then we use those for restoration projects.”

Fontenot said that this is a good opportunity for both graduate and undergraduate students. They are planning for graduate students to be working on thesis projects there, and undergraduate students will be working on the daily care and maintenance. There will also be three designated planting days in the fall.

“We’ll also be doing volunteer planting,” Fontenot said. “Anybody in the University or the community can go and help do these plantings on those days.”

Fontenot said that it is important for the University to participate in coastal restoration since Nicholls is in the heart of the Barataria Terrebonne estuary that is losing a majority of its land. He also thinks that students should be involved at the farm because it is a great way to get involved in coastal restoration activities and learn about issues associated with coastal restoration.

“A majority of our students are from this area, and everyone from this area is being affected by our coastal land loss,” Fontenot said.

He said that those who participate may get muddy and dirty planting the plants, but “anyone who does (participate) will be very glad they did this.