The 2017 Shelby County Cooperative Extension field day at Mulberry Orchard was an enormous success. A large crowd of 305 people attended, despite high July temperatures and humidity. Mulberry Orchard is a local agribusiness and agritourism destination. Matt and Amanda Gajdzik were great hosts and also catered the meal through their Mulberry Kitchen. 

More than 250 guests pre-registered for the meal, with an additional 100 extra attendees who did not pre-register. Four large tents housed educational booths and tables representing FCS, 4-H, Horticulture, and Ag/Natural Resources programs. In addition, Homemakers clubs, wool spinning, and a honey bee display provided fun information and hands-on activities. Local service organizations also set up booths to promote themselves and provide information.  These included a local chiropractor, Shelby Prevention, local EMS services, and others.

A major component of the field day was the farm tour and educational hay ride provided by Matt and Amanda. Shelby County Intern, Andrew Glass worked closely with the hosts to help orchestrate this tour. Visitors enjoyed a tour of the farm with views of some of the diverse crops and commodities growing there. Stops included fruit tree production (specifically apples and peaches), Agritourism and how it plays into their operation, and an Industrial Hemp demonstration plot. The Kentucky Hempsters, a hemp advocacy group, set up a booth to answer questions and a provide information about Industrial Hemp and its production and outlook in Kentucky.  Andrew surveyed the attendants with three pre-tour and three post-tour questions in order to gauge their understanding of Shelby County Agriculture’s impact. The questions were designed to measure their knowledge before the tour and then any difference in their understanding after the tour in order to measure the level of learning that occurred.

Of the estimated 90 people on the tours, 53 responded to the surveys.  62.5% of the tour respondents had never attended an extension event or field day before.  A surprising 68% of respondents said that they thought that Shelby County farms produced a very diverse number of crops and commodities, even before participating in the educational tour.

From the post-assessment, 88.6% of respondents said that the tour was very beneficial to their understanding of the economic impact that agriculture has on Shelby County.  85% of tour participants said that the tour was very beneficial to their further understanding and knowledge of diverse, non-traditional crops and commodities such as honey, apples, and industrial hemp.

Overall this was a very effective event for helping advocate and communicate Shelby County agriculture to a larger audience.  (Success story written by Summer Intern, Andrew Glass and edited by Ag agent Corinne Belton).