Ploughing champ venue inspected in Mid Canterbury

Members of the NZ Ploughing Association executive team and Rakaia Ploughing Association members meet on the Wilkinson farm at Chertsey, (from left) John Hall, Sarah McCully, Eddie Oakley, John Davison, Graeme Joyce, James Burnby, Bruce Redmond, Noel Sheate, landowner Kate Wilkinson, Alan Begg, Paul Murphy, Ian Woolley and Norm Styles. The site will host the New Zealand Ploughing Championships next year. Photo: Toni Williams

The New Zealand Ploughing Association executive team gathered in Mid Canterbury last week to inspect the ground for the 2019 New Zealand Ploughing Championships, to be held in Chertsey next year.

It will be held at the Wilkinson farm, on Wilkinsons Rd, Chertsey, 2.3km from State Highway 1, on May 11 and 12. Around 32ha, or three paddocks, will be available for use.

NZ Ploughing Association president Bruce Redmond, of Methven, said the executive, who meet four times a year, would view the site and discuss layout of the competition.

He said it was a chance for the executive to meet the members from the Rakaia Ploughing Association and find out about things like accommodation and services in the district, to be able to inform ploughmen competing next year.

Rakaia members included John Davison (president), John Hall and Alan Begg.

After the site inspection, the executive were to meet in Methven.

The Wilkinson farm, in the hands of fifth-generation family member Kate Wilkinson, is a sheep and crop farm spanning 546ha. It has been in the Wilkinson family since 1876.

In the build-up to the national championships, up to 23 qualifying events are held by associations around the country each year.

The championships are held over two days; day one is the stubble competition and day two the grassland competition. Around 40 ploughmen will compete in

four classes; Gulf Oil Silver Plough (conventional), Farmlands Fuel Reversible, Rural New Horse Plough and the Agricentre South Ltd New Holland Agriculture Vintage Plough.

Winners of the silver plough and the reversible classes go on to represent New Zealand at the world competition to be in Russia in 2020.