MOULTRIE — Even before the exhibitors began hauling away the giant combines or the last pickup truck filled with visitors departed on Thursday, the thoughts of Sunbelt Agricultural Exposition employees were turning to next year’s show.

Attendance was noticeably down for the 31st annual edition of the farm show due to the economy, which means working to bring innovations to the 2009 show that will be relevant and attract visitors.

One of those could be innovations that cut farmers’ fuel costs, Expo Director Chip Blalock said Thursday.

Blalock estimated that attendance this year likely was down about 15 percent, although the final figures for Thursday were not in at the time

Attendance on Tuesday was 25,000, 35,000 on Wednesday and expected to be about 25,000 on Thursday. This is the first year that attendance figures have been released since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks due to security concerns.

Like the farmers who attended the show, Blalock said Expo has felt the pain of sharply higher fuel costs in planting, harvesting and irrigating the demonstration fields at the show.

“We certainly were not immune to high diesel costs, just like the average farmer who paid an extra $2 a gallon for diesel this year,” he said.

Blalock mentioned biodiesel as one money-saving venture on which Expo can educate farmers.

“(Growing) some form of biomass to make our own biodiesel would probably be the biggest way we could help farmers use it on their farms,” Blalock said. “We’re always looking for ways to enlarge our educational programs, in tough times and in good times. We’ll look at things to see what we can do. We’ll try to focus on energy in the coming year, ways to connect different biomasses to use for energy.”

Ways to cut energy use through conservation is another area to examine, he said.

Blalock said the three days of the show went well, other than the decline in attendance.

“This economy is real,” he said. “It affects everything. It just makes us more anxious to get started for next year.”

Among the hits at the show this year were the backyard gardening section, the Snakes Alive exhibit in the hunting and fishing section, “dueling cotton pickers” in the field plots and a Toyota “behind the wheel” event that allowed people to take off-road test drives.

There were more than 1,210 exhibitors at the event, Blalock said. Only one foreign contingent — a group of Indians who came to see the John Deer “Pinnacle” cotton picker — came this year, so far as Expo officials know. That’s down from previous years as well.

“That was the most humbling thing, that our exhibitors stuck with us,” he said. “I’ve had exhibitors tell us the quality of the visitors was good, they were the people they do business with.

“Our attendance may have been down more if not for the work we do the other 50 weeks of the year.”

Expo is always a good time for business and the attendance dip also was noticeable.

At Applebee’s restaurant, Jerry Searcy, assistant general manager, estimated that business was down about 10 to 15 percent from last year for the three days of the show.

“It was good; we’ve been busy,” he said. “It’s been off compared to previous years.

“It’s definitely good for business. We’ll take it. We have the Hampton (Inn) behind us, maybe that helped out a little bit. It always helps for business to pick up.”

A study conducted two years ago by the University of Georgia estimated that Expo has a $17 million economic impact in the region.