Just one county north of Ohio’s Pickaway County, which some refer to as the epicenter of the state’s drought, is Madison County — the home of Ohio State University's Molly Caren Agricultural Center and the host of Farm Science Review.

Despite drought conditions, this week’s show, Sept. 17-19 — the 62nd Farm Science Review — is on track to host hundreds of demonstration plots and several million dollars’ worth of machinery.

MCAC manager Nate Douridas was busy the week before the Review opening up fields being used as demonstrations.

“We’ll let the featured companies take over from here, but from what we saw, soybeans are faring better than expected. And to be honest, we weren't expecting a lot,” Douridas says. “We’re seeing some smaller seed size because of the dry conditions, especially at the finish of the life cycle. But, in general, we're experiencing about 50-bushel beans on average. That’s about 10 bushels better than what we anticipated.”

The crop progressed fairly quickly through the season, but drought conditions have diminished since mid-June. “The dryness has finished it off early as the crop essentially ran out of moisture, and in most cases, just gave up,” Douridas says.

However, corn fared better with good kernel size and satisfactory test weight of 56-57 pounds, he reports. “We averaged over 200 bpa last year, but we’ll be under 200 this year,” he adds.

Douridas manages the 2,100 total acres at MCAC, with about 1,500 acres of crop production and 500 acres dedicated to the annual Farm Science Review field demonstrations.

On tap for the show are ongoing demonstrations, which include ag innovation. “We’ll have spray drones, two autonomous tractors, an autonomous robotic irrigator, and John Deere’s See & Spray Ultimate. It has cameras on board and processors that look for weeds and spray the weeds only,” Douridas says. “It’s targeted spraying.”

The company says See & Spray Ultimate can reduce nonresidual herbicide use by more than two-thirds by target spraying weeds.

In addition to the See & Spray, other 2024 demos include:

The Review will continue to offer a vast array of tillage demonstrations, including strip till and vertical tillage. “And, of course, we will have our popular corn and soybean harvest demonstrations,” Douridas adds.

As in past years, tile drainage installation demonstrations will be offered through a partnership with the Ohio Land Improvement Contractors Association.

Tornado recovery

Beyond the fields and demonstrations, more than 600 exhibitors eagerly await visitors. The grounds may look slightly different to longtime attendees.

At 5 a.m. Feb. 28, a tornado ripped through the grounds of FSR and caused significant damage.

The rebuilding process included university and company-owned structures, which has led to changes in building designs to improve resilience, Douridas says.

“The grounds are ready, showing resilience, just as growers have faced in their many challenges,” he says.

The show will cover various topics, including budgets, equipment, farm stress, carbon capture, fertilizer prices, disease management and much more.

“We have experts available to answer any question they would have at the farm level right now,” Douridas says. “Everything you can imagine is going to be covered in one way or another during the Farm Science Review. Bring your questions.”

With MCAC being an earnings unit, “We have to operate just like farms we're surrounded by, generating our own income. One of those income sources is from crop revenue,” Douridas explains. “But about half of the corn harvested at the facility stays internal for our feed mill to support animal operations in our college. So, it's just a great demonstration of our internal supply chain and how we work together with our other statewide locations.”