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The 24th South Texas Farm & Ranch Show promises to be one of the best farm and ranch shows ever with booths and programs for every landowner whether farmer, rancher or just an agriculturist or landowner. If you are a farmer, rancher, landowner or gardener mark Oct. 22 and 23 on your calendar and plan your farm work around it. If you are employed elsewhere, reserve those dates as vacation days so you don’t miss any of it.
The show will be at the Victoria Community Center. Now is the time to plan for it. More than 25 speakers at the show will tell you their secrets and enlighten you with information to plan changes to your farm, ranch or home environment. Looking for TDA pesticide CEU’s? Well nine and half hours will be offered in the two days including two hours in laws and regulations, six and a half hours in integrated pest management and one hour in general.
And if you are into commercial agriculture and must have Certified Crop Advisory CEU’s, 11 hours will be offered including one hour in nutrients, seven hours in pests and three hours in crops.
The show is offering 120 – 125 exhibit booths with the latest agriculture technology. Whether it is utilizing a new commodity in feed or mineral for livestock or the strongest built machinery that can stand up to South Texas brush or the latest computer software to enhance your operation, this show has it on display. A few booths are still available in case you have something you want to promote that will benefit farmers, ranchers and agribusiness.
The Cattlemen’s College will be both days starting at 6:30 a.m. with a free breakfast. This year, ranchers will learn about what it takes to produce quality beef that is competitive on international markets and the production practices ranchers can follow to be a strong link rather than a weak link in the South Texas beef industry chain.
These practices should in turn result in ranchers receiving more money for their calves. Managing cost and returns in range beef cattle and reducing cost and increasing returns will be addressed along with a panel discussion between beef processors, feedyard managers and cattle buyers.
Concurrent sessions and a breakfast on both days at 6:30 a.m. deal with fertilizer and alternatives for the farmer and rancher, dealing with high fertilizer prices, new fertility concepts, alternate strategies for pasture management and three hours of pesticide credit including toxicology of pesticides, pesticides and related issues and new herbicides and weed resistance.
And to make your farmstead a more productive, enjoyable and pleasant place to live, you need to know about citrus for the home landscape, fire ant management, managing insects and diseases in the turfgrass and arthropods as control agents for insect pests. All of these programs will be presented at the show and will be worth pesticide credit.
The Victoria County Master Gardeners are also participating in the show planning many of the gardening related programs and staging on Wednesday their statewide kickoff event for Painting Texas With Wildflowers, offering wildflower seed balls for planting.
A feature of the show this year is of special interest to landowners and photographers. Ruth Hoyt, nationally known naturalist and photographer from Linn will illustrate the benefits of photography to landowners through partnerships with ecotourism activities such as nature photography. These types of opportunities are quickly becoming a viable means of increasing revenue for landowners, and area residents can learn more about this method of generating business by attending Hoyt’s presentation titled “Creating Farm and Ranch Photo Opportunities.”
Last, are our two luncheon speakers who should be of interest to all. On Oct. 22, District 18 Senator Glenn Hegar of Katy will highlight key issues facing agriculture in his keynote noon address. Tickets are $7.
Thursday, Jerry Parsons, extension horticulturist of San Antonio will address superstar plants for around your farm and ranch homestead that will minimize your care and dependence yet enhance your living and relaxing environment. Attendees will get to taste a certified choice 12 ounce South Texas barbecued rib-eye steak for $10.
The lunch is sponsored by Texas Liquid Fertilizer, South Texas Electric Coop, Dow, Monsanto, Victoria Oliver Company, Graham Land and Cattle Company, Holt Caterpillar and Sam Kane Beef Processing. Tickets must be purchased from the Victoria County Extension office by 5 p.m. Oct. 20 and by calling 361-575-4581 notifying which educational programs you will be attending to assist the show in planning sufficient seating for the two-day show.
Gary Loest, the 2008 show chairman, a lot of people have been working long and hard to plan a bigger and better show and the 2008 show will prove to be one of the best.
“With the current economic times programs like the Cattlemen’s College and the fertilizer and alternatives, presentations are even more important than they were a month ago. Loest said, “We simply can not continue to do business like we did in the past.”
Joe Janak is a Victoria County extension agent.
When: Oct. 22-23
Where: Victoria Community Center