Teleporter registrations continue to be heavily affected by the current COVID-19 situation.

Registrations of such machines in May dropped by 70% year on year to 12 units, according to figures from the Farm Tractor and Machinery Trade Association (FTMTA). This brought the total for the first quarter to 208 units, a drop of 27% on 2019.

FTMTA chief executive Gary Ryan has noted that the closure of the registration facility at NCT centres would be significantly affecting the registration of such machines, as many such registrations are done in that way.

Wheeled loaders

Meanwhile, wheeled loader registrations dropped by 12 units in May compared with the same month last year, with 10 units registered.

Despite this drop, registrations of new wheeled loaders for the first five months of the year are only down two units on 2020 at 67 units.

For the second month in a row, there were no registrations of backhoe loaders during May, leaving the total for the year to date at 19 units, down from 39 at the end of May 2019.

A further nine new self-propelled forage harvesters were registered during May, bringing the total for such machines so far in 2020 to 31 units.

While there may be a small number of additional units yet to be registered, it is likely that the vast majority of such machines have been registered by now.

Last year was a bumper year for foragers, with just shy of 60 new machines registered. Numbers were expected to fall this year, but 2020 is still ahead of 2012 (22), 2013 (24) and 2014 (26) registration figures.

There have also been two secondhand foragers imported and registered.