21.05.2010

International Hand-Mowing competition in Nature park Goričko

The Singing association from Selo and the Public institution Nature Park Goričko organized on 16 of May a International hand-mowing competition in Selo. It was the first time that these two Organisations prepared together such an event to promote traditional hand scythes mowing of meadows in Nature Park Goričko. Together with the Örségi National Park Directorate, which is a part of a 3-lateral park Goričko-Raab-Örség along the European Green Belt, we assembled 40 competitors from Slovenia, Hungary and Serbia. Among others a team of mowers from Nature Park Šturmovci attended the competition. Every year they also organize a mowing event which intention is to preserve wet and dry meadows along the Drava River in Slovenia.

The mowing competition in Selo consisted from three categories; men – till 60 years, women – no limits regarding the age and veteran men and women. Men competitors had to mow field 7 m by 7 m in size, women 5 m by 7 m and veteran 5 m by 7 m. All fields were surrounded by 1 m safety buffer area.

All competitors in one category started to mow at the same time when the referee called “ready, steady, go”. And when they finished mowing they had to raise their scythes up in the air.

The Competitors had been placed based on their total score in the competition. Namely the total score was a composite of the points earned by mowing time and the quality of the mowed field.

The winning mower in each category was based on the lowest total score.

Since there hadn´t been any limits regarding the length of the hand scythe competitors had different length of scythes. In men’s category the winner needed 1 minute and 12 seconds to mow his field and had second longest scythe with 1,2 m total length. The best woman spent over 3 minutes to mow her “meadow”. The oldest competitor was 83 years and the youngest only 13 years old.

After the competition the project “Sustainable use of Nature 2000 habitats along the Slovenian-Hungarian border”(coofinanced by the Program of cross-border cooperation SI-HU 2007-2013) and nature friendly mowing technique  were presented. The main aim of the project is to establish a model of sustainable use of cultural landscape which is based on the natural, economical and social resources and to preserve the biodiversity of Natura 2000 sites along the Slovenian-Hungarian border.

For more information, please contact G.Domanjko, Nature park Goričko, gregor.domanjko@goricko.info or visit www.park-goricko.org.

 Text and Photo by Gregor Domanjko, Nature Park Goričko