Our own CEO Charlie Nicklin, shares the sercrets of his success in this rural skill.
As with most activities in life, people like to test their skills against one another in a competitive way, and ploughing is no different. Around the UK and the world hundreds of people compete with both new and old tractors, but also horses and garden tractors, pitching there skills against each other to plough the neatest furrow. Competition ploughing was once a domain for manufacturers to develop their ploughs by using top ploughmen and was a means to advertise the quality job produced by their product. Although this still happens, match ploughing is now dominated by both new and old equipment and has become a serious hobby for many people.
Charlie Nicklin will give you some background to the origins of ploughing and how match ploughing started many years ago, along with the array of different classes and equipment used. He will then take you through his own equipment and how a competition plot is ploughed from start to finish, along with the most commonly asked question of how is it scored.
Charlie Nicklin is a Chartered Engineer and has been CEO of IAgrE since late 2020. Charlie previously spent 25 years with JCB, including 11 years leading R&D for the Fastrac range. He also spent his early years designing telehandlers and latterly 5 years as the Backhoe Loader Chief Engineer. Growing up on a farm, he then studied Agricultural Engineering to degree level. Outside of work Charlie keeps himself busy with family life, renovating their Georgian farmhouse and pursuing his hobby of vintage tractors and ploughing.
