ALL roads led to Emerald last week as the Ag-Grow team mounted another QMIX field day expo over three days, and it was a milestone being the 20th so far held.

The effect of the Global Economic Crisis was evident by the empty spaces on the western end of the field day site, which are normally filled with mining equipment.

Conversely the number of stud cattle displays at the eastern end of the ground had increased considerably, backing the AgForce claims that one of the reasons the recession is not evident in regional Queensland is because of the resilience of the agricultural sector.

The store cattle section and horse sale attracted record nominations and there was standing only room at the cattle dog auction where bidding was brisk and $2000 and above was the going rate, which isn’t surprising as compared to a man’s wages that’s a good investment.

It’s amazing how amongst the cattle handling and farming equipment there is always something that makes one wonder why it hadn’t been thought of it before. A couple of examples were: the

RPM Livestock Equipment overhead, lever operated pound, where the operator from a raised platform is able to work all the gates of the pound using a series of levers at his fingertips. The other was a set of spring grip wire strainers that overcome the shortcomings of existing sets such as the first anvils that grips the wire falling off while you are attaching the second, the way is works is by the jaws being spring loaded and you squeeze them to open and they shut automatically.

That’s not to say there weren’t what seemed to be a dozen or more small sites offering gadgets that one couldn’t do without – like a small set of grinding discs that fitted to a drill that sharpen knives and blades at exactly the right angle – and included was a drill vice to fix the drill to the bench.

Ag-Grow lived up to its reputation of being an event with something for everyone, which you will appreciate from our coverage.

*More photos in this week’s North Queensland Register, out Thursday.