Welsh Show award for temperature monitor
Ten new farming ideas featured in the exhibition, and the other winner was the Tidy Tryc, designed to carry hay or straw, towed behind a quad bike.
Other exhibition entries, seen by the 237,694 show attendance, included dung beetles, which reduce pasture fouling by breaking down dung, and an off-road machine, called the HexHog, which allows wheelchair users to access land independently and safely.
The Royal Welsh Award of Merit, for new innovation that shows the most potential for improving agriculture in Wales, went to the Bella Ag Cattle Temperature System for monitoring cattle temperature wirelessly, with automatic alerts for consistent high or low temperatures.
The US-based Bella Ag company says it can boost farm efficiency by improving overall herd health, detecting illnesses three to five days earlier, and improving heat detection.
Early alerts can reduce the requirement for antibiotic treatment.
There was a ‘highly commended’ certificate for Telor Edwards, from Bala, Wales. Edwards is a farmer who studied mechanical engineering at university, and whose Tidy Tryc impressed the judges.
It is designed for handling slices of different-sized, big, square bales.
It could be used for manoeuvring straw bedding around confined buildings, or for carrying hay out to feeders behind a quad bike.
It can offer savings for buyers of small bales by allowing them use big, square bales.
The Tidy Tryc consists mainly of a steel frame on eight-inch high wheels.
Dung Beetles Direct breeds and sells native UK dung beetles to farmers and horse-owners, to make the most of nutrients contained in dung.
The beetles bury and shred dung, and could prevent heavily stocked pastures from being covered in dung.
They can be used to improve ‘horse-sick’ pasture, and raise soil fertility and soil organic matter (thus improving soil aeration and soil structure). Water run-off quality can be improved, and livestock parasites reduced.
Across the world, dung beetle populations are in decline, largely due to use of livestock wormers (anthelmintics) and other chemical parasite-control products, as well as changes in pasture management.
They are, therefore, not burying and shredding dung as efficiently as they could be.
Dung Beetles Direct supplies packages of live, British native dung Beetles to be released on the fields. The company is carrying out trials in conjunction with Farming Connect, a Welsh Government rural business support agency.
Dung Beetles Direct advises farmers on how best to re-establish dung-beetle populations on their land. Dung Beetles Direct is a business arm of Dr Beynon’s Bug Farm, run by entomologist, farmer and TV presenter, Dr Sarah Beynon.
She has researched the importance of dung beetles in agricultural systems for several years. Her doctoral thesis, which investigated the impact of livestock wormers (anthelmintics) on dung beetles and rates of dung decomposition, won the Royal Entomological Society’s prestigious Wallace Award.
Unprecedented levels of terrain access for wheelchair users are claimed by the makers of the Hexhog.
The electric, all-wheel drive machine is designed to take them anywhere able-bodied people can go on foot.
Its key feature is the machine’s flexible chassis, which maintains all-wheel contact with the ground, for stability and traction. The Hexhog was designed by Sion Pierce, a Welsh engineer and a farmer’s son. He teamed with Da-Vinci Wheelchairs Ltd to bring the Hexhog to a wider audience, launching the machine last spring.
