This year’s National Ploughing Championships opened with a host of new machinery displays, most notably from among the Irish farm machinery manufacturers.

The inventiveness of the Irish companies was obvious in the large number of new machines with a home focus that were on show for the first time.

Leading companies such as McHale Engineering had a host of new products, from variable chamber Fusion balers to new bale feeders.

There were new machines from HiSpec, Abbey, Major and Keltec, to name but a few. The entry of Keltec into the mower market is a third Irish mower brand on the market.

There were a number of zero grazing machines on show as farmers look to expand milk production where grazing platforms may be a limiting factor.

While there were a number of combines on show, they were modest and more suited to the current temperature of the combine harvester market.

Claas had their new Tucano model on show, while Deutz-Fahr had a 6040 machine and Case had a new version of the Axial Flow on their stand. The machinery displays included some larger tractors, but no vulgar displays of tractor power were visible.

Among the trade stands, more budget-friendly scale tractors were displayed compared with previous years. There was a larger proportion of these from across the world including Chinese, Indian, Polish and Turkish origin tractors.

Here, we give you a flavour of the range of exhibits with more to follow next week.