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More than 300 people turned out for the Tillage and Cropping Demonstration Day at Elmore Events Centre on Wednesday.

A section of the events centre was used to demonstrate the latest tilling and seeding machinery on the market.

The K-Line Speed Tiller caught the attention of many farmers at the event, who praised it as being one of the best pieces of equipment on show.

‘‘It’s very strong and overall better than the other tillers,’’ Strathmerton farmer Dean Coburn said.

Violet Town farmer Tom Maher said he was looking at hard-wearing tillage tools for his dryland farm.

Mr Maher said he liked the old-style farming methods, but they proved costly due to the intense labour involved.

One technique he looked at bringing back to his farm was tilling the weeded paddock and turning the sods over completely to add nutrients back to the soil.

He said the one-way disc plough was ideal for this type of farming but became obsolete about 50 years ago.

Mr Maher spoke to Hardmetals vendor Lou van Beveren about agricultural points — used to place on tilling equipment to prevent wear and tear on the steel — for tilling on dryland.

Mr van Beveren said he enjoyed the chance to meet clients face-to-face in a relaxed environment.

‘‘It’s about farmers standing by the back of their utes having a yarn,’’ he said.

Mr Maher said he was grateful the vendors gave their time to prospective clients and there was no pressure on the farmers to buy and no gate fee for the event.

Elmore farmer Ged McCormick said he was interested in a machine which mixed last year’s stubble into the top layer of soil.

‘‘It all comes back to stubble management and improving organic matter in the soil,’’ he said.

He said he would borrow the machine to test it on his own land to see if it suited his soil.