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VIDEO: Smashing weather pulls in strong crowd at Wimmera field days

A streak of beautiful weather has attracted over 20,000 people from Victoria, across the country as well as overseas to descend upon the 2015 Wimmera Machinery Field Days.

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The annual event, dubbed Victoria’s largest agricultural trade show was held from March 3 to 5 this year.

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Wimmera Machinery Field Days manager Murray Wilson says while the event attracts the same amount of visitors each year, good weather definitely helps pull in some extra numbers. 

“When we’ve got really good weather in Wimmera for the field days we get good crowds, people stay for a long time and they really get to see everything that the field days has on display,” he says.

The field days also reached exhibitor capacity, with all its 1000 sites booked out this year.

While exhibitor response has been positive overall, Wilson says a sub-par harvesting season had farmers tightening their belts.

“Some of the bigger companies didn’t do as well but that was expected following a poor harvest last year,” he says.

“Having said that however, there were a number of orders taken for a lot of good machinery.

“Field days is very much a 12 month process so even though some companies may not get results in three days, they’re building a relationship with clients there and will eventually see some results later in the year.”

While sales of large machinery have been less than ideal, Wilson says smaller traders have experienced a greater amount of success from the field days.

“One caravan company sold five large caravans by Wednesday afternoon,” he says.

“A lot of our smaller traders did very well, particularly those who have exhibited here a number of years.”

While the field days has a strong focus on broadacre cropping and agriculture, there were also a number of exhibits and programs tailored for younger visitors and those from non-farming backgrounds.

These include an animal farm, free train rides, fashion parades, a farm sculpture exhibition and cooking shows hosted by last year’s My Kitchen Rules winner Bree May. 

On Wednesday March 4, a number of site and product awards were handed out to exhibitors to acknowledge innovation in agriculture as well as the efforts put in to the design and layout of the sites.

The Machine of the Year award was taken home by Claas Harvest Centre for its record-breaking Amazone UX11200 boom sprayer while Next Instruments’ CropScan 3000 grain analysing system was crowned ‘Agribusiness Innovation of the Year’.

Several other companies including Southern Precision, Scania, Claas Harvest Centre and PB Seeds took home site awards.

“The competitions and awards were well received,” Wilson says.

A new addition to the field days itinerary this year was the field day forums organised to keep farmers abreast of the latest trends and happenings in Australia’s agricultural industry.

“That’s an opportunity for farmers to take a break, relax, talk to the experts and get up to date with what’s happening in farming and the future of farming,” Wilson says.

The forums are expected to become a permanent feature of the Wimmera Machinery Field Days moving forward.

“We’re one of the most important field days in Australia for broadacre cropping and large acreage farming,” Wilson says.

“So if you’re involved in cropping and you’re involved in agriculture, this is the most important field days in Victoria to be at.

“As we’re one of the first field days on the calendar, we would like to be able to start the year off for all the other field days across Australia to see what works and from there set the scene for the rest of the year.”

Look up full list of agricultural field days and events for 2015

Check out our coverage from the 2015 Wimmera Machinery Field Days below:

Crop Scan 3000H

CropScan 3000 grain analyser system wins innovation award

06-03-2015

A unique analysing system capable of reading grain protein and moisture levels has been named “Ag Innovation of the Year” at the recent Wimmera Machinery Field Days.

Amazone UX11200 Sprayer _1

Amazone super sprayer named Wimmera Machine of the Year

09-03-2015

German ag-equipment specialist Amazone’s 12,000-litre capacity trailed sprayer has been crowned ‘Machine of the Year’ at the 2015 Wimmera Machinery Field Days. 

Direct Seeding Equalizer Min -till Air Seeder WMFD

South African seeding technology enters Australian market

16-03-2015

The Equalizer Min-Till air seeder which has been making waves in its country of birth, South Africa has touched down in Australia and recently made its public debut at the 2015 Wimmera Machinery Field Days.

Photography: Carene Chong | Video: Andrew Britten

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