We had nearly 50 entries for this year’s farm inventions competition, ranging from a simple bale carrier to a fully-fledged forage wagon. We round up the winner and runners-up in the Simple category.

WINNER: Antony Strawson’s Bagwiz bulk bag filler

On his farm near Horncastle, Lincolnshire, Antony Strawson hopes to start marketing this clever-but-simple attachment for telehandlers which allows bulky organic materials like firewood, bark, compost and mulch to be bagged straight into builders’ sacks.

There are other telehandler-based bagging devices already on the market, says Mr Strawson, however those are expensive and unsuited to working with the bulky materials they use. They are also complicated and involve hydraulics, which means that it is difficult to swap them between machines unless the pipework matches.

The Bagwiz was first put together by an employee who was tired of manually bagging bark. He devised a basic frame which was developed into the present machine. It is coupled directly on to the telehandler on its brackets to ensure maximum rigidity. The operator raises it to 1.2m and attaches the builder’s bag underneath on to four pins.

The whole unit is then pointed down at a steep angle and driven into the pile of material. It is then flicked backwards 1-2 times so that the material flows into the hopper and down into the bag. The bag is then carried to the stacking area or placed on to a waiting vehicle and detached by reversing backwards so that the bag loops automatically come away.

Output is around 25 bags an hour and the cost of bagging has been reduced from £3 a bag down to £1 a bag a saving of around 67%.

RUNNER-UP: Telor Edwards’ Tidy Tryc

Telor Edwards, a sheep and beef farmer from Bala, North Wales, came up with this very neat way of carrying slices of big square bales around buildings. Called the Tidy Tryc, it can be pulled/pushed by hand or (with a clevis pin attached and the handling tubes slid inwards) towed behind an ATV. Blanks cover the tines when it’s being towed and a ratchet strap gives extra security. He’s started selling it, too.

THIRD PRIZE: Michael Spencer’s broken shear-bolt indicator

Grantham, Lincolnshire farmer Michael Spencer came up with a simple way of showing if a shear-bolt had broken on his Sumo cultivator. He bolted tennis balls on long poles on to each leg, which pop up when a shear-bolt breaks.

They are easy to see in the cab above the modern, wide mudguards that normally prevent you from seeing this happen, he says. The balls are cheap and also easy to notice at night, though he says it’s a good idea to tell your daughter before you take her tennis balls…

See the winners and runners-up in the Intermediate and Complex categories.