BETTYFIELD, Kelso, will host the 56th Scottish Ploughing Championships on October 27 and 28, by kind permission of Messrs William Kirk and Sons.

The Borders venue offers good ploughing land in an ideal location, and the weekend will see 180 ploughers from Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland compete in classes for modern, vintage and horse ploughing – conventional (general purpose), classic, multi furrow reversible butts, classic reversible, Ferguson TE20, vintage mounted, vintage trailing, high cut, horticultural, horses broken furrow and whole furrow, with the champions in each section going on to represent Scotland at World, European, Six and Five Nations championships around the globe in 2019.

Scottish ploughers have already been flying the flag at international competitions in Europe this year, with Raymond Middleton from Elgin retaining the Classic Reversible title at the European Vintage Ploughing Championships held in Belgium in August and Jamie Dick from Falkirk winning the Reversible title at the Five Nations Challenge held in Northern Ireland in September.

Local ploughers to watch out for at Bettyfield include George Black from Earlston in the Vintage Mounted class (George was second overall in his class at the British Ploughing Championships held in Warwickshire at the weekend), T J Myatt, Stuart Forsyth, Keith Robertson, John Griffin and James H Millar in the Classic class, Keith Learmonth, Keith T Learmonth, Alastair Fotheringham, Neil Ramsay, Bruce Richardson and Kenneth Wood in the Classic Reversible class, Fraser Thomson and Stewart Shaw in the Multi Furrow Reversible, Sinclair Robson, George Gillan and George Riddell in the Ferguson TE20 class, Ian Harvey in the Vintage Trailing class and David Wood, Stephen Paine, Donald Henderson, William Henderson, George Cook, and Eddie Riddick in the Vintage Mounted class.

Ploughing commences at 9.30 am each morning, and finishes at 2pm. Alongside the competition ploughing, there will be machinery stands, craft stalls, trade stands, demonstrations by modern farm machinery, a static display of vintage machinery and working demonstrations.

Kverneland UK continue as the event's main sponsor, with Calibrate Energy Engineering as 'gold' sponsor. 'Silver' sponsors are Friends of Ferguson Heritage (sponsoring the Ferguson class), d.m.i. mechanical engineers (Kelso), East Coast Viners, Grimme UK Ltd and Kelso and Lothian Harvesters. Bronze sponsors are Amazone, Harry Ferguson Traveline, H and H Land and Property, Jacobsens-GFM and Pottinger UK.

More information is available on the website at www.scotplough.co.uk and the Scottish Ploughing Championships Facebook page.