Scotgrass machinery demo cancelled due to lack of grass
The ScotGrass 2013 machinery demo, due to take place on 14 May at Crichton Royal Farm, Dumfries has been cancelled because of continuing cold weather and poor grass growth.
Duncan Russell at event organiser Agricultural Engineers Association said fields where the event was to take place have seen practically no grass growth since Christmas.
“We’ve been talking to the host farmer today,” he said. “With the planned grass harvesting event to be held in six weeks’ time, we cannot see any way that we would be in a position to offer the companies involved in the event any reasonable crop to harvest.”
“With the planned grass harvesting event to be held in six weeks’ time, we cannot see any way that we would be in a position to offer the companies involved in the event any reasonable crop to harvest.”
Duncan Russell, Agricultural Engineers Association
Host farmer Hugh McClymont said the grass grew well during the milder period over Christmas, but had stopped in recent weeks. And night-time temperatures in the last couple of days have been lower than ever. He now expects harvesting of the grass to be delayed until June.
This is the second working grassland event in a row to suffer from the weather. At last year’s Grassland UK demo in Somerset (pictured) it was too wet for machinery to work, so all the equipment had to be moved on to the hard-standing at the next-door Bath and West Showground.
Wet weather forces venue change for Grassland UK