Show wraps up with more farm technology
The finale of the 55th Colusa Farm Show saw visits from families and farmers to the annual event at the Colusa County Fairgrounds.
There were an estimated 20,000 attendees at this year’s farm show, as well as over 300 vendors exhibiting tools and technology across the agricultural industry. The three-day event brought out seasoned attendees and vendors, as well as newcomers.
First-year farm show vendor Crystal Stiles owns EZ On Lights, based in Siskiyou
County. Stiles said she already knows she wants to return to the show next year.
“We will be back,” Stiles said.
Stiles said her company – which makes magnetic safety lights to attach to farm equipment – has received good feedback at the show, including an invitation from the local California Highway Patrol to speak about safety for commercial farming operations.
“Anything that needs extra light for safety, and you don’t want to wire,” Stiles said. “(We) want to give them a viable option for safety.”
After working as a vendor at the Tulare Farm Show last year, Stiles said she likes the family atmosphere at the Colusa Farm Show.
“I like the fact that it’s free – free entry,” Stiles said. “I can see generations growing up this way... it’s good for the community.”
Another first-time farm show participant was
Alan Precup, a sawmill sales representative for Bailey’s, a logging supply company based out of Woodland. Precup said he was impressed with his first Colusa Farm Show.
“I didn’t realize how mechanized the farming industry had become,” Precup said.
Precup said the farm show has helped to get “new eyeballs” in front of the company’s products, like through his demonstration of the “cant hook”– a j-shaped metal hook attached to a handle to help roll large logs.
“There’s a surplus of logs to be milled, and we’ve gotten a lot of interest in finding things to do with their deadened trees,” Precup said.
Aside from watching demonstrations, attendees could closely inspect the 4-wheel vehicles, tractors and all-terrain vehicles on display at the farm show. Cynthia Struckmeyer, her son Ryan Struckmeyer and his son Reed came from Yuba City, to show
Reed the farm equipment.
“He’s (Ryan) in orchards, he works for Peterson Farms and they do nuts,” Cynthia Struckmeyer said. “But we’re fifth generation farming so we’ve been to the show quite a bit.”
She said she wants to learn more about orchard farming, since Ryan made the switch from rice and row crops to orchards.
“I’m trying to get familiar with the orchard machinery,” Cynthia Struckmeyer said. “I’m
pretty good with the harvesters and the combines and things like that, so now I’m looking at the tree trimmers and the mulchers.”
Aside from learning about new farm equipment, she and Ryan both
said their favorite thing at the show was the tractors, because three-yearold Reed loves to crawl around.
“Reed, he just wants to get in everything,” Cynthia Struckmeyer said.