Sunbelt Ag Expo Opens for 38th Show

The weather should be just right for today’s opening of the 38th annual Sunbelt Ag Expo in Moultrie, Ga.

The crowd that comes out to Spence Field can leave their umbrellas at home with zero chance of rain and a high predicted around 77 degrees.

“We are all ready to go,” Executive Director Chip Blalock said Monday. “It’s beautiful weather – not too hot, with a nice breeze – and we are ready to welcome 75,000 to 100,000 of our closest friends from all over the world for this year’s show.”

More than 1,200 exhibitors will display and demonstrate products across the 100-acre show site, while farmers wander the 600-acre research farm to check out field demonstrations and watch tractors, combines, peanut pickers and cotton pickers side by side.

Expo visitors will have the chance to drive and compare pickup trucks from the major manufacturers.

Then there’s the entertainment, including the daily Antique Tractor Parade, the American Grand Finals Stock Dog Trials, equine demonstrations, the milking contest between state agriculture commissioners, whip-cracking demonstrations from Florida teen cattlemen and more.

It’s a day to learn, as well as have fun.

Experts in beef, dairy, horses, gardening, poultry, forestry and pond management will give more than 300 seminars over the three days of the festival.

”The Sunbelt Expo is an unbelievable showcase of rural living blanketed with agriculture’s newest ideas and technologies,” Blalock said. “It’s three days of fun, education and dreaming about agriculture’s future as we team together to feed, clothe and house a growing population around the world.”

Gates are open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Wednesday and 8:30 to 4 on Thursday. Ticket price is $10.

For more information, visit sunbeltexpo.com