Well not just England but...
Is it just the UK that hold such boring but fascinatingly therapeutic pastimes?
Instead of, 'I'd rather watch paint dry', It's, I'd rather watch a ploughing match'.
The only benefit I can see is that the host farmer gets his field ploughed for free.
Fascinating!
The only benefit I can see is
What downsides do you see?
I suppose it's up there with who can round round a track to the quickest, who can kick a ball through a net the best, who can ride a bike round a velodrome the bestest, who can out karate their opponents.
Yeah why practice something pointless like did production when you could ride a £10000 bike down a hill then get a lift back to the top
We've even got local associations.
https://m.facebook.com/pg/Atholl-breadalbane-ploughing-association-1671078413183988/posts/
The world ploughing champs are on in a couple of weeks, in Ireland this year so you could nip over. The ploughing national champs is a big event in Ireland.
I’d rather watch that than golf.
As Kilo said they ploughing championship is HUGE in Ireland, nearly 300,000 people turn up each year.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ploughing_Championships
What downsides do you see?
Absolutely none now you mention it TBH.
The world ploughing champs are on in a couple of weeks, in Ireland this year so you could nip over. The ploughing national champs is a big event in Ireland.
I now know, I Googled it.
Just to watch an old tractor with a 2 furrow fixed plough is just fascinating, In a very odd way.
Also a showcase for antique and vintage machinery still in use.
What's not to like?
Also a showcase for antique and vintage machinery still in use.
What’s not to like?
It was at The annual Hunton Steam Gathering up here in Darkest North Yorkshire. I didn't take enough photo's.
Some on here would say the emissions would be problematic.
When you move abroad you start to miss British eccentrisms like this.
When we used to host the local ploughing match we'd always have to replough the field against their furrows to give anything like an even surface for proper seedbed preparation, so not even the benefit of saving diesel.
There's been a fair drop off around us now that they are having to run their tractors on white diesel, makes ploughing half an acre seem a bit more expensive.
There IS an art form to it though, even more so when a chap turns up with a team of horses!
Steam fairs - brilliant!
Next weekend for our local ploughing match.
I think the best ones are the hedgelaying competitions. Local bridleway looked immaculate after that.
Dove up through Ireland from Cork a few days ago, the National Ploughing Championships, or ‘coughs’ as those in the know call it, The NPC, is well publicised along the highways and byways of that green isle. It’s kind of a big deal over there
When you move abroad you start to miss British eccentrisms like this.
I'm pretty sure other countries have their eccentricities.
When we used to host the local ploughing match we’d always have to replough the field against their furrows to give anything like an even surface for proper seedbed preparation
I love insight like this 🙂 . Is that because all the competitors plough to different depths, or the old machinery doesn't do it right, or what?
Next weekend for our local ploughing match.
I noticed our local one was advertised last week as I drove through Gower. My wife was puzzled when I said I might go - I think she'd forgotten that I spent time at an agricultural college.
#notjustEngland..
I'm in Wales. The world champs are in Ireland, which I think is a completely different country to England. Europea International had their ploughing comp in Switzerland in 2019 and the results had quite the multi-cultural look about them, with barely an English sounding name. The 2022 comp is in Estonia this month.
I suspect that ploughing competitions will happen anywhere that people plough.
