LISA YOUNG: Joining KVNF today are Katie Alexander, Tri -River area, CSU extension and Steve Hale, president of Shavano Conservation District. The duet is here to talk about the upcoming Western Colorado Farm and Ranch Innovation Expo, taking place November 13 -14 at the Montrose County Event Center.
YOUNG: Steve, you can start off telling us about the expo? As I understand it, this is the second year that you've held the expo.
HALE: Yes. We're excited to get this off the ground as an annual event. It's at the event center here in Montrose County. It's just a wonderful venue to have a trade show that also lends itself really great to have demonstrations in the arena. But the reasoning behind this, our conservation district has worked very closely with CSU extension and Katie here also serves on our Western Colorado Soil Health Committee. So the committee, along with the district and CSU, decided that we really ought to bring some of the newer technologies, newer practices, things that are available to help farms and ranches in our region to be more sustainable, more profitable and bring bring forth some of the neat new things that are happening in agriculture. And this is a perfect venue, perfect opportunity to do that.
YOUNG : As I understand it, this is a free event to anyone who would like to attend. Katie, for those coming to Montrose, what can they expect?
ALEXANDER: So we'll have a vast array of vendors that will be here. They'll be putting on different demos throughout the day. We're working on getting the agenda printed and typed up for people to see. And of course, just walking around the event center. We have that fantastic arena. It's going to be roller packed. The equipment will be able to do some demonstrations out in the actual arena. Vendors will have displays, technology and tools surrounding what farmers and ranchers in our area might need, or just to start thinking about how to implement this into their operation to save the money or time.
HALE: We're excited because we've kind of made focus events around each day. So we're putting this open on Thursday the thirteenth, right at the heels of Montrose County Water Summit. And so water conservation, more water irrigation efficiencies, things like that are going to be the focus of Thursday afternoon. The doors open at twelve noon that day, and we're going to have really fantastic demonstrations on on new drip irrigation technology and different things. Even with the center pivot sprinklers to really maximize the efficiency of water. And that's a huge subject in our region. And then Friday the fourteenth is our focus of livestock operations. And we're going to have demonstrations galore, we're going to have portable handling facilities and virtual fence.
ALEXANDER: That's probably what I'm super excited about is think of it, virtual fencing. Think of it as like a, a collar and a giant system for your cows instead of a GPS for your dogs.
HALE: So, much to see on that Friday the fourteenth, we're going to also be talking about and displaying and demonstrating different farming techniques like no till and minimal till equipment and things that make a lot of sense in today's world where we can reduce the number of passes and tillage that cost so much in fuel and equipment needs, so we can bring some of those practices and technology to the table as well.
YOUNG: Katie, tell me a little bit about what's happening on Saturday.
ALEXANDER: So we'll have a couple demonstrations on some of the the newer technology for weeding and pest mitigation with some robotic companies and some biochar curtain burner, possibly.
HALE: Yeah. It's I mean, these are some of the technologies and things that are available now with automation we didn't even dream of a decade ago, and they're now available. And this is why it's so important for anyone that has either land or connection to a farm and ranch or even a small backyard garden operation can get value out of this show.
YOUNG: Katie, tell me a little bit more about vendors.
ALEXANDER: CSU's researchers are going to be providing some posters of their current projects and some past projects so that customers that are walking around have the opportunity to to learn a little bit more about what the research stations that are in Fruita and Hotchkiss are currently working on and learn just a little bit more about that type of stuff.
YOUNG: So, Steve, tell me a little bit about last year's attendance and what you expect for this year.
HALE: Last year we were able to get off the ground with probably, I'd say, two to three hundred people in attendance. And this year we're actually going to be starting with the water summit. So there's going to be several hundred people that are automatically going to be able to go from that water summit, where we'll be finding out the latest about our water rights and our water compact that's being decided right now. There's a lot of discussion going on in the state as to what that means and how it's going to affect our irrigation season next year. So they're already going to be several hundred people to that event, and they're going to open the show with with that crowd, and it's going to be a good kickoff from there.
YOUNG: Well, it seems like with a lot of folks milling around looking at all of the vendor booths and the demonstrations, folks may work up a bit of an appetite.
HALE: Well, we're going to have a lot of good food there. We're going to have some of our best area food trucks and we also have one of our farmers that has an orchard there in Olathe, and he's bringing his apple cider and apple juice again. And that's going to be exciting. We're going to have some of the local flavors. And, you know, it just really lends itself to a good, wholesome family event. Really as a community, it's our agricultural community showing off.