It can be used to manage vegetation like bracken, or dense, encroaching gorse, or to cut mature heather that is coming to the end of its life cycle.

Lamma 2016 was held three weeks ago, and record crowds browsed through more than 850 stands displaying machinery, crop protection equipment and supplies, plus a wide range of associated farming trade stands.

Farm machinery manufacturer McConnel has looked closely at flails, and come up with what they claim is the first heavy-duty T-flail which is equally adept at grass mowing, hedge-cutting, or maintenance of mature three-year hedge growth.