Thousands of visitors attended the 2016 FTMTA Grass & Muck in Co Tipperary last Thursday where there was more than €20m worth of machinery on the 100 acre site.

Machinery demonstrators took part in 3,000t silage harvesting operation and a muck spreading demonstration where more than 700t of well matured muck was spread.

New machines were launched on the day, including New Holland’s T5 and T6.

Brian Magee of New Holland said the UK and Ireland launch was a huge success.

“The show is a fantastic platform for us to show our new machines

“It’s a fantastic way to show people where we come from and the fact that we have a got a long heritage in grassland equipment."

Irish market

Speaking of the Irish market, Chris Wiltshire of John Deere said it was key for forage product and Ralf Lange of Strautmann described it as “one of the most important markets.

Nerjum Ham of Lely Holland predicted the market in Ireland to be difficult however, with the market leaning towards combination wrappers.

“The market is going towards combinations. Contractors are willing to buy one machine instead of a single baler and a wrapper.”

New products

Paul McHale of McHale Engineering also spoke of new wrappers to the market.

“We have a new high speed wrapper which can apply four layers of plastic in 18 seconds or six layers in 25 seconds. It’s a very high speed machine aimed at contractors who are running two or three balers that can follow those balers and keep up.”

Paul Scrivener of Farmhand described its new CF155C baler as an extreme model machine with unique features.

“They’ve perfected what they created all those years ago."

For a full report on Grass & Muck 2016 see this week's Irish Farmers Journal on sale Thursday.

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