A crowd just shy of 60,000 flocked to the 2018 Henty Machinery Field Days to inspect the “agribusiness supermarket’’, showcased by 849 exhibitors across 105 hectares.
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The 55th annual field days featured 14 kilometres of outdoor shop fronts on more than 1200 sites from September 18 to 20.
Despite tough seasonal conditions along the eastern seaboard, visitors sought out hot-ticket items of hay, fencing and stock handling equipment.
With many regional cereal and oil seed crops due to be cut for hay this week, mowers, rakes and tedders were at the forefront of inquiry and sales.
To aid drought-stricken farmers Grainline at Wagga auctioned a grain auger for $22,209 for the Rapid Relief Team while Pioneer Water Tanks auctioned a tank for $7000 to donate to the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners.
HMFD chief executive officer Belinda Anderson said dry weather made the event easy to run logistically.
She said exhibitor numbers were almost on par with last year and some had increased their site to accommodate larger machinery and equipment.
A crowd of 57,000 generated sales of stock handling, fencing products and water troughs.
“Catering sheds did really well – one exhibitor used 50 kilograms of donut flour on the first day on a single stall,’’ she said.
“Most people made it a day to catch up with mates, see the latest technology and plan for when it does recover.’’
A highlight of this year was the coveted Henty Machine of the Year Award resented to Simon Schinckel, of Naracoorte in South Australia, for the Schinckel Next F Series V-rake.
Henty’s largest exhibitor, Hutcheon & Pearce, won the award for the Best Large Outdoor Site and reported record merchandise sales across the three days.
Sales operations manager Andrew Watt said there was plenty of interest in the tractors, from the compact up to 150 horsepower models, for livestock and dairy applications.
He said the new line of gators plus the ride-on mowers also generated buyer interest.
Berrima Engineering director Martin Morona, of Deniliquin, fielded inquiries on hay rakes and tedders.
“Being so dry, unfortunately the crops aren’t going to make it and people are making hay,’’ Mr Morona said.
“We have customers with plenty of canola already on the ground. It’s not the best way to sell machines but it is the best they can make of a bad situation.’’
Burrumbuttock Hay Runners co-ordinator Brendan Farrell said $15,000 had been raised by merchandise sales for the January hay run.
“Henty’s been a huge success for us this year – the mood is still upbeat,’’ Mr Farrell said.
The 130,000-litre tank auctioned for BHR was bought by Walbundrie farmer Brian Trethowan, who volunteers on hay runs.
“People are worried they won’t get much of an income this year so Henty was more of a get-together,’’ he said.