Something for everybody at 49th Annual World Ag Expo
There was something for everyone at the 49th Annual Ag Expo in Tulare on Tuesday.
Under a clear sky in unseasonably warm temperatures for February, crowds jammed between booths and exhibits for seemingly miles.
They queued up to view the latest and greatest heavy farm machinery, high-tech irrigation equipment and agriculture-related mechanisms that promise to improve production and make lives easier. Some just came for the rib-eye sandwiches.
Will Machugh, owner and founder of Eltopia, a communications company that focuses on agriculture, was there to give presentations on some of the innovations his company offers.
“I like researching,” he said. “I dropped out of high school but I’ve never had a problem with learning.”
The first seminar Machugh hosted involved sensors that tell farmers how much and where the moisture in their fields resides.
“It’s about efficient allocation of resources,” he said. “This will allow (farmers) to know when to pull up sprinkler heads if there’s too much saturation [in the soil].”
Machugh’s second presentation later in the day involved a theoretical technology that would heat a beehive internally, killing the Varroa destructor mites in the colony.
According to Machugh, the mites infest 100 percent of hives in the U.S. and Europe
and cause 30 percent of losses of bees annually.
All the technology presented by Machugh is currently in the prototype phase and has yet to hit world markets.
Liz Baskins, program coordinator at the California Foundation for Agriculture in the classroom, hosted a truck that taught kids the importance of nutrients and agriculture.
Participants learned about proper plant care and were given the choice of a basil, tomato or sunflower seed to plant in
a small plastic cup filled with soil.
“It’s their little souvenir,” she said.
Baskins said she would be traveling in Tulare and Kern counties visiting fourth- and fifth-grade students at schools the rest of the month.
Joyce Vosburgh of Visalia was with her grandson, Kannon Liebelt, 3, who found himself easily distracted by a vendor selling balloon animals.
“We’ve come every year, the past three years, as a family,” Vosburgh said.
John Ledbetter of Visalia has been a volunteer
at the expo the past three years.
Stationed at the Antique Farm Equipment Museum, which features vehicles and machines dating back before 1900, Ledbetter said the museum offered a glimpse into the nation’s agricultural past.
“It’s nice that people can come in here and see how difficult it was back then,” he said. “It all started out with elbow grease,
now it’s all automated and high-tech.”
Given a choice, Ledbetter said he’d probably choose one of the older models housed at the museum.
“I’ll stick with something I can start up myself,” he said. “I know it’s dependable. This [old] stuff will run.”
The World Ag Expo in Tulare will continue through Thursday.