As farmers are prepping equipment in the shop to get ready for spring planting, I’m doing the same thing on our family’s farm. Yet I’m also thinking about the year ahead and the 2020 Farm Progress Show. This year, we return to the Central Iowa Expo site in Boone, Iowa, for the seventh time. This is an amazing site that includes four-lane road entrance for easy access.

Several years ago, the site got a significant road upgrade through a partnership with the Iowa Department of Transportation, where the show site roads are a test bed for durability and other factors when we’re not there for a show. But that also means we have wide, well-drained concrete roads for moving around the exhibit field.

And we’re getting ready for field demonstrations. One key feature of the Boone site is the easy access to demonstration fields. All field demonstrations are east of the exhibit field — no need to figure out from day to day where you can go for corn harvest or tillage demonstrations.

And speaking of demonstrations, we continue in 2020 with the tiling demonstration project we started in 2018. This is a major tiling demonstration, which we’ll be doing over 200 acres as part of the program through 2022.

And we’re expecting that 2020 will bring not only the tiling demonstration but also expanded examples of autonomous equipment at work. Expect more details as the show approaches, but we’re excited about the potential opportunities for visitors to see more driverless equipment at work.

By March, we’ll already be at work on the exhibit field, so you can see crops grown on the site. As for our demonstration fields, like every farmer-visitor to our shows, we're hoping for a “normal” growing season.

When we changed the dates for the show several years ago, we locked in on the Tuesday through Thursday before Labor Day weekend. For 2020, Labor Day falls later in September, which means the Farm Progress Show runs from Sept. 1 through Sept. 3. Time to mark that calendar.

As for advance ticket sales, look for those to be live on the website — FarmProgressShow.com — by June 1. That's plenty of time to get your tickets and make plans to join us. In addition, the show website will feature updated places to stay overnight and other helpful tools as you plan your trip to Iowa.

Jungmann is events manager for Informa/Farm Progress, owner of the Farm Progress Show.