Digging deep

The David Brown competition plough continues to bring boundless joy to enthusiasts, finds Kevin Alviti

- Kevin Alviti

Turning over the soil to create somewhere clear of weeds to grow plants is a large part of what has enabled humankind to have a steady food source over the last few thousand years. Arguably, it has helped us to change from hunter gatherers to an agrarian society. It could also be argued that the invention of the heavy plough enabled much of the early colonisation of Northern Europe, allowing heavier clay soils to be turned over which couldn’t be farmed before.

As time moves on, some might be tempted to call ploughing an art that is going slowly out of fashion, with minimum tillage becoming increasingly popular. Ever larger tractors have meant that methods have changed, with heavy discs being pulled to cultivate just the top few inches of soil.