On Thursday June 27th 2024 I held a farm field day for the first time in many years for Nicholas County. Myself, Dr. Smith and Dr. Coleman worked with a local hay producer on having a field day at their farm for "Producing hay for horse markets: Quality hay takes effort." JP Judge hosted this event at his farm where we had demos set up to show those that attended how they harvest their hay and put up the hay that they raise and sale to local horse farms and other producers. JP also had another demo set up to show about drones and their new technology on how they use them for their hay production. They showed how to spray the crops with the drone (we used water for this demo) and we also showed how you could use the drones to seed your ground. They had found that they prefer to use the drone for spraying and such more than using equipment because it helps them to be able to spray their crops even if its too wet for equipment to get into the fields. JP explained the process it takes to get the drones up and running and how to run them but also explained that not just anyone can go out and fly these drones that you have to be licensed as well.

Dr. Coleman and Dr. Smith brought different tools to show how to gather hay samples to be sent to the lab with his hay probe and also talked and demonstrated testing hay moisture with his tester. He talked about the importance of both of these tools and the helpful uses that they bring to those that produce and raise hay for themselves and others. He also talked about how to market your hay to horse owners and what a lot of horse owners might look for when trying to buy hay or raise their own.  

Nicholas County Caring Hearts came out to the event to help cook the burgers for us that we had gotten from the new local slaughter house in the county Harrison Harvesting, i had ordered baked beans from another local business 68 West to help stay locally with the food in the county and support our local businesses. The Nicholas County FFA came to help park cars and assist with serving the food and getting people signed in. NRCS came to set up a booth for people to come talk to them and ask any questions that they might have and lastly Pecks Farm Supply also came and set up a booth to promote their feed store down the road and they had also donated the waterer that we used to keep the drinks cold for this event. We had around 60 people preregister for this event on Qualtrics, the day of the event i had 35 people sign in on the sheet but counted 70 people in total.