From the start of January to the end of February this year, a total of 656 new tractors were registered in Ireland. According to the FTMTA, this is a drop of only five units or less than 1% on the 661 units registered during the same period of 2018.

As would be expected, the majority of these machines were registered during January with 443 units in comparison to the 213 registrations in February. The February 2019 new tractor registrations represented an 8% increase on February 2018.

The three counties with the highest levels of registrations so far this year are Cork, Tipperary and Wexford with 82, 72 and 54 units registered respectively to the end of February. Leitrim saw the lowest level of registrations, with three new tractors registered so far.

FTMTA chief executive Gary Ryan said: “Beyond the high levels of units registered in the top three counties, there is a healthy spread of new registrations across the county.”

The trend towards higher power tractors in the Irish market is continuing to grow. A total of 94% of all new tractors registered during the first two months of the year were in excess of 100hp. Figures also show that 56% of new tractor sold were over 120hp, while 29% were over 150hp.