Lots going on at the Crops, Soils and Conservation Area at Ag Progress Days

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — This year, just like every year, there will be a lot going on in and around the J.D. Harrington Crops, Soils and Conservation Building at Penn State’s Ag Progress Days, Aug. 13-15. Exhibits and activities will feature crop management, renewable energy, conservation education and planting demonstrations, as well as the signature hay show.

Specialists from Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and other organizations will be on hand to answer questions about crop production, weed identification, water quality and renewable energy. Visitors can ask questions about crop and nutrient management, no-till practices, organic farming and sustainable agriculture, and even bring weeds for experts to identify.

Penn State Extension educators will staff two locations in the Harrington Building, showing off interesting displays and fun activities related to energy. At the main entrance, the popular Virtual Reality Tour will take visitors to a solar photovoltaic array, showing them what it’s like to be at one of these systems.

Near the entrance of the Corn Maze, the renewable energy display will have a wide array of energy information and displays, including new biogas activities for kids, such as a coloring page and fashionable biogas headgear they can make.

Renewable Energy

On Tuesday, the Energy Showcase will focus on Solar Power on the Farm, with four engaging presentations in the American National Learning Center Building. Topics to be addressed will include:

• 10 a.m. — Solar on the Farm.
• 10:30 a.m. — Credit Markets for Renewables.
• 11 a.m. — Siting Considerations for Large-Scale Solar.
• 11:30 a.m. — Solar Energy Perspectives in Communities and Local Government.
• Noon — Open Discussion.

Demonstrations

Outside the Harrington Building, the Conservation Exhibit Area will include demonstrations supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. With a focus on working farms, NRCS technical staff will feature an active livestock-watering system with solar-powered pumps for grazing operations; a scale-model manure storage and concrete heavy-use area to address animal concentration areas and manure management; and a soil pit to demonstrate soil health. Inside the Harrington Building, the NRCS booth will showcase a cover-crop display, soil health demonstrations and a live web soil-survey activity.

The Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance will feature rainfall simulator demonstrations showing infiltration at regular intervals at the north entrance to the Harrington Building, and Penn State Extension’s Agronomy Team will showcase no-till equipment in the no-till corral.

South of the Harrington Building, numerous plots of the more popular cover crop mixtures will be on display. As these are located near the seed companies’ exhibit areas, visitors with questions will be able to visit with seed company representatives to get answers and to receive more information.

A related presentation, “Mix and Match: Optimizing Cover Crop Mixtures for Your Farm's Goals,” will take place at 12:30 p.m. daily in the American National Learning Center. Growers can hear updates on Penn State’s long-term cover crop mixtures trial, share their experience with cover crops and discuss how the benefits of cover crop mixtures could fit their farms’ goals.

Adjacent to the cover crops plots will be this year’s planting green demonstration. Crops of sorghum-sudangrass and a mixture of sorghum-sudangrass/field pea/tillage radish will be rolled and have corn planted into them at 11:45 a.m. during each day of Ag Progress Days, weather permitting.

Forage mowing, tedding, raking, baling, and bale handling demonstrations will again take place during each day of the show. A no-till planter demonstration will take place each day at 12:30 p.m. at the north end of the Ag Progress Days site.

“It’s been over 10 years since we’ve had planting equipment run at Ag Progress Days, but this year five manufacturers with 12- or 16-row corn planters are planting corn in mid-July, and a  live demonstration will take place each day at the show, adjacent to where they planted in July,” said Ron Hoover, senior project associate and coordinator of the On-Farm Research Program with Penn State Extension. “Hopefully, we will get some rain, so that visitors will be able to gauge planter performance, along with watching them operate in the field.”

Tours

A walking tour of water wellhead safety will be led by educators from Penn State Extension’s Water Resources Team. This 30-minute tour will spotlight ways to keep well water safe for both people and livestock. The tour time is 1 p.m. daily, departing this year from the Master Well Owner Network booth, J 404 inside the Harrington Building.

Other tours focusing on stream buffers, livestock pastures, forest management and equine pastures will take place at various times during the three-day event. Buses will leave from the corn crib at the top of Main Street.

Hay Show

The 2024 Hay Show again will be sponsored by the Pennsylvania Forage and Grassland Council, Ag Progress Days and Penn State Extension. Samples may be dropped off inside the Harrington Building at the end of East Fifth Street or at the designated Hay Show drop-off location at the east entrance of Ag Progress before the show. Deadline for entries is noon Tuesday, Aug. 13. Judging will commence Wednesday, and placings will be announced Thursday morning.

Public display of entries will begin Wednesday afternoon and continue all day Thursday. All samples, along with placings, will be displayed at the 2025 Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg, in the lobby of the Maclay Street entrance.

Other Activities

— The A-Maze-N-Corn, a perennially popular Ag Progress Days attraction, will be available for visitors to explore. Children and adults can wander this large corn maze, which is stroller and wheelchair accessible.

— The Center for Agricultural Conservation Assistance Training at Penn State is introducing a new passport to ag conservation for new and beginning ag conservation professionals and those considering the career. The passport will help guide participants to exhibitors around the show grounds who have something to share about agricultural conservation practices, and it can offer networking and learning opportunities for ag conservation professionals. Visitors can stop by the Center for Agricultural Conservation Assistance Training booth to pick up a passport.

— The USDA-NRCS display in the Harrington Building will feature dozens of live cover crop specimens. The exhibit also will contain soil health demonstrations and general information. In addition, attendees can engage in conservation trivia with prizes. New this year, the NRCS station offers an activity to make a miniature soil model card to take home. Outside the building, visitors can climb down into a pit and examine the soil from a worm’s-eye view.

Sponsored by Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, Ag Progress Days is held at the Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs, 9 miles southwest of State College on Route 45. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 13; 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 14; and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 15. Admission and parking are free.

For more information, visit the Ag Progress Days website. X (formerly Twitter) users can find and share information about the event by using the hashtag #agprogressdays, and the event also can be found on Facebook (@AgProgressDays).