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The weather was fine and sunny and this helped attract good crowds for the two days of competition.
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.
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Ploughing champions Mark Dillon and Malcolm Taylor earned the right to represent the country at the World Ploughing Championships in Osijek, Croatia, on 5 and 6 September, after winning their titles at the New Zealand Ploughing Championships in Middlemarch in 2025.
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