While I was visiting the Ohio Corn Growers exhibit at the Farm Science Review I had a nice talk with 5 time IHRA Funny Car Champion Mark Thomas. Here he is explaining his car to an FFA student.
Mark is not only a professional drag racer but a farmer himself. He has 500 Holstein cows and farms 2,200 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, and alfalfa. You’d think that would be enough to keep him busy!
One of his passions is ethanol. He basically grows his own fuel and has had a mission to help educate the public about this renewable energy source. So that’s part of his message here at the show. I asked him about how his farm business was going. He says that the past year or so has been pretty good but it’s basically making up for years that weren’t so good. However, he says that there’s a lot of uncertainty about the future and with the problems lately in financial markets there’s good reason to wonder.
He says the question he gets asked most often standing by his funny car is, “How much horse power?” It’s got 3,000 HP and goes from zero to 250 mph in 5.7 seconds! Of course he runs on ethanol and he says the car uses just over a gallon of ethanol per second.
You can listen to my interview with Mark here: fsr-08-thomas.mp3
Farm Science Review Photo Album
AgWired coverage of the Farm Science Review is being sponsored by Monsanto and the Propane Research and Education Council.
The 
Harvesting corn and soybeans isn’t the only field demonstration you’ll see at the Farm Science Review. There’s also a section devoted to precision agriculture.
I think this year’s Farm Science Review has had the best weather of any farm show I’ve ever attended. Of course they had to go through some nail-biting times just prior to the show when the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through. In this week’s show I talk with show manager, Chuck Gamble. He says he’s all about promoting agriculture. In fact, he received one of the new Honorary Farm Broadcaster awards from ABN Radio on the opening day.
Another new feature of the show is a “wireless internet cloud.” Chuck says that they didn’t have cable out to the show site but this year they laid in fiber optic and put up over 50 small towers around the exhibit area. It’s fast, reliable and everywhere. So besides us media types, exhibitors now have a new resource. 
Speaking of corn, how about soybeans? They were also ready to harvest here locally at the Farm Science Review.
We finally got to see corn being harvested at a farm show this fall.
Field demonstrations got into full swing this afternoon at the Farm Science Review. I think this is the first show to be able to provide in-field demos and farmers were out to see the show.
The 
The new President of the 
The second woman to become President of the Ohio Propane Gas Association was Jane Newton, pictured on the left of the propane powered corn popper here at the Farm Science Review. She is a propane marketer with a family business. Jane was President of OPGA in 2000.