Penn State will be hosting their annual Ag Progress Days at Rock Springs Aug. 14 to 16 and if you’ve never attended or if it has been awhile I would encourage you to take a day trip to State College and have a walk around.

The event is full of equipment and ag innovations giving you an opportunity to talk to sales reps and browse new toys.

In addition to the equipment and vendors the facility also hosts several bus tours and cover crop research displays.

Alex Dado and myself, along with Penn State Extension, will be hosting a soil health bus tour that focuses on high stock density grazing and integrating cover crops into a pasture/ cropping system.

The bus tour will last about 90 minutes and will feature livestock from a neighboring beef farm who intensively manages his pastures.

During the tour we’ll discuss and demonstrate moving the animals, fence and water setup, sizing paddocks and other considerations unique to tall grass grazing; the soil health benefits and grazing cover crops.

This year the livestock will be grazing several varieties of covers from local seed companies, so you’ll be able to see how they take to the different varieties and which species they favor and which they are more hesitant to graze.

There will also be some hands-on opportunities with various mixes examining the roots, nodulation and their impact on improving soil conditions.

This is a great way to get some one-on-one dialogue with several experts in the industry, so you can become comfortable trying these practices on your own operation.

Ag Progress Days runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day and our tour will run 3 times each day except Thursday, when it runs twice. The tour starts at 10:30 a.m.

For more information about Ag Progress Days you can visit: https://agsci.psu.edu/apd

Andy Gaver is a conservationist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Butler County.