Appealing alpacas.

The weather was at least partly responsible for the boost in attendance with first day numbers up 2.3 per cent on last year. On day three numbers were up 10.4 percent and by the end of day three nearly 100,000 people had passed through the gates.

A highlight of the farming calendar, this year’s Mystery Creek show did not disappoint.

Exhibition sites bustled with farmers and many others keen to see the new and the improved.

This year’s Premier Feature ‘The Changing Face of Farming’, set the tone for a range of exhibits based on

John Key checks out Jasmine Creighton's pigtail transporter.

addressing the changing land ownership model in New Zealand; succession planning, sustainability, governance, the role of women in farming and career pathways.

The Innovation Centre, powered by the University of Waikato, was the showcase for the best industry developments and inventions to improve New Zealand farming practices.

Once again it proved to be a melting pot of talent showing the inventiveness of New Zealanders which today is far advanced on the No 8 wire mentality for which they are renowned.

The competition also showed that age has no bounds when it comes to innovation. Not when a 12-year-old’s school science fair project can take out the Young Inventor of the Year award. Jasmine Creighton’s Pigtail Transporter clearly impressed the judges. The transporter carries 50 pigtail standards and up to four electric fence reels and is designed to be pulled along manually. Jasmine invented it for herself because she could not carry many standards and had to put them all down while she pushed one into the ground.

The judges commended her clever approach to a simple problem and the impressive research she had undertaken.

NZ Landcare Awareness Category winner Korari in the Ag Art Wear competition.

One of the most popular Fieldays events is the Ag Art Wear competition and yet again the 2012 show was a visual feast of creativity inspired by all things rural.