Ploughing Champs success
Sean Leslie and Casey Tilson from Middlemarch, with horses Beau and Dough, took out the Rural News Horse Plough award at the Power Farming NZ Ploughing Championships at Horotiu, near Hamilton, on April 13-14.
Ideal conditions greeted competitors at the 61st National Ploughing championships held near Rongotea in the Manawatu over the weekend.
The weather was fine and sunny and this helped attract good crowds for the two days of competition. There was a good representation from both the North and South Island for the event.
The chairman of World Ploughing, Colin Millar says the local organisers and the owner of the land where the competition was held really stepped up to the mark because it was beautiful site and well prepared land. The event was well run.
"The soil conditions were amazing, the level of the grass and the stubble was exceptional. We told the competitors they could remove as much straw as they like because there was no straw on the site," he says.
One of the events which attracted the crowds was the Rural News sponsored horse ploughing competition which saw six competitors in the race to win the coveted Rural News trophy. Sean Leslie and Kaye Walker from Middlemarch who took out the trophy.
Craighead Diocesan, Darfield High School and Christchurch Boys' High School took out the three age groups at the Canterbury Clash of the Colleges, which was held at the recent Ashburton A&P Show.
The New Zealand Merino Company (NZM) is expanding its collaboration with TextileGenesis to deliver full traceability for 100% of ZQ certified wool and ZQRX regenerative wool.
According to Federated Farmers, Environment Southland has mishandled the consent process for Waituna Lagoon, leaving the community with numerous bad outcomes.
Metallica's charitable foundation, All Within My Hands (AWMH), teamed up with Meet the Need this week for a food packing event held at the New Zealand Food Network warehouse in Auckland.
After two years, Alliance Group has returned to profit.
According to Zespri's November forecast for the 2025/26 season, returns are likely to be up for all fruit groups compared to the last forecast in August.

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