Field Days During Social Distancing

Field Days During Social Distancing

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
I’m Tim Hammerich with your Southeast Regional Ag Report.

Field days are important for farmers to get a look at new products and practices. Are they still possible under social distancing precautions?

Chip Blalock and his team at the Sunbelt Ag Expo recently found a way. Usually put the farmers on the trams and pull them through the fields to hear the talks from all the researchers and company reps. But this year that just wasn’t feasible.

Blalock… “This year with social distancing, you know we couldn't pull that off with trolleys. So we said, Hey, we're going to do a hybrid. We're going to let the farmers drive through in their trucks. We're going to all of the content. When you go through, when you drive your truck through the field plots, it'll be marked. You'll come to stop one, you'll play video one that's on our website. So on and so forth.”

Blalock says it worked so well, it may even change the way they do field days in the future.

Blalock… “The vendors, the researchers, the company reps really liked it. The attendees, the farmers that was here really liked it. You know, in July, even in the morning in July, it's really hot. So they really enjoyed riding through the fields in their air conditioned vehicles. So I think we're onto something for 2021.”

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Blalock says the pandemic forced them to think outside the box, and this may be one of the few good things to come out of all this.

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