Day 1 - Ryan

 

Today started very early. We had to be at the airport by 4:30, which meant waking up around 3:00. Mind you, I had gotten back from Spain the day prior, and they are six hours ahead of us. Thankfully, I beat the jet lag.

Once in Ohio, we went to “THE Ohio State University”. Place emphasis on the word, the, as they tend to place heavy emphasis on it here. First, we went to a talk with Brad Collins, who works at OBIC, which deals with alternatives to petroleum products, bioplastics, and different products and projects that can help our environment in the long run. He passed around different bioplastic products, and products made with plant based materials instead of petroleum products. It was a very informative talk about all of the work that OBIC is doing, like community outreach and education, development of new products, and research.

Next, we went upstairs to learn briefly about OSU and its admissions process. Amy Jo Baughman talked to us about the different agricultural programs, the different campuses, and the admissions process and deadlines for applying. After her spiel, she turned it over to Cody Myers, who showed us around the different agriculture campuses at the main campus. We toured the college of food science, animal science, we saw a classroom that had an arena to bring animals into, a rooftop garden, and my favorite part, seeing all of the massive tractors the student use and train on as part of their class. There was a harvester, a huge sprayer, a rear tracked cab tractor, and three, yes three Case IH Quadtracs. If you didn’t know, the Quadtrac is my favorite tractor. Admittedly, it is very hard to drive in Farming Simulator ‘19.

After the tour we packed up and went to the Delaware CountyFairgrounds, which is home to The Little Brown Jug, a Standardbred horse race. They have a track, stables, and turnout pens for all of their Standardbred horses. I work with horses, so this was the highlight of the day. Standardbred racing is very different from Hunters and Jumpers, which I work with. Also, I had only known about saddle races like the Kentucky Derby, so this was very informative. The people there talked about the horses and the race of course, but also about the county fair, the different events they have, and the upgrades they’re doing with the money collected from the bed tax in Delaware County. Essentially, if you stay in a hotel in the county. 3-4% of your sale goes to the Delaware County Fairgrounds for upgrades and maintenance. They expect to get about $9 million in the initial five years of the tax. I can’t lie, seeing the horses was the best part, even if I could only see them in their stalls. They provided us with supper, as well as had a panel of board members talk to us about what they do at the fair. This was followed by a question and answer session. We went to the hotel after that, and once there we wrote all seven thank you cards for everyone we met today. Overall, a great first day. I hope my blog was informative and somewhat interesting,

 

Day 1 by Nick

Our first stop was at The Ohio State University where we heard Brad Collins speak to us about one of the colleges in the university. He is part of OBIC, the Ohio Bioproducts Innovation Center. He talked about how the plastics we used to use are different than the plastics we can find today. Instead of using fossil fuels they are using soybeans, corn and other plant materials. They call this new plastic a bioplastic. 

He showed us the different types of products that contain the bioplastics. For example, he showed us dish soap, 2-cycle motor oil, a kitchen cutting board and a foam ball that is an example of the inside of car seats. I also found it very interesting the things he shared about Henry Ford and the things he introduced to the society.

Amy Jo Baughman talked to us about the College of Agriculture. We had the opportunity to introduce ourselves to her. She also shared with us what it takes to become a college student. She introduced Cody Myers to us who showed us around the campus. He shared lots of good information with us. For example, the older arena has an underground tunnel so that cattle could be brought in to the classroom. Then we got to see some of the big equipment that students can learn about and use on the university’s land.

 

From OSU we went to the Delaware CountyFair and the Little Brown Jug. Mrs. Sandy Kuhn, the Delaware County Fair Director, spoke to us about the history of the fair. She introduced Brian and Jennifer Brown who talked about how they work together to train horses for Standardbred racing. He was able to share with us the details of the care of the hooves of the horse and how important this is. Having an understanding about the type of track affects how the horses hooves are cared for. So if the track is sandy the horse does not need shoes. Most European horses are not shod. We also got to go outside to visit the very energetic horses. We were able to meet some of the members of the fair board and learn about what they do. I thought Mr. Howard was the coolest, showing us a little auctioneer action!

  

They were very gracious to provide us with pizza. It was a great first day of the Summer Ag Tour.