It's a pleasure to report some positive news regarding new recruits beginning their career in the industry in today's Update. 

Both John Deere and Kubota have welcomed a raft of young people on to their respective schemes - with the former reporting that this year's group is in fact the highest total intake since the first Ag Tech induction in 1992. An impressive statistic.

As we all know, a steady stream of new recruits entering the industry is vital. It has been a hot topic of discussion this year - although when isn't it, I suppose? I listened to BAGMA's Keith Christian discussing the subject at SALTEX and it was clearly on the minds of many of our delegates at the recent Service Dealer Conference, with several of the speakers addressing the topic.

One of the areas which has been cited in these conversations as a potential draw to garner interest amongst youngsters, is to concentrate on the cutting edge technology which they will have the ability to be heavily involved with, were they to join the industry. There is so much to be excited about right now in terms of new developments, across the sectors which dealers specialise in, we really should be shouting it from the rooftops.

Obviously the big ag guys, such as the John Deeres and Kubotas of this world, are very much at the forefront of boundary-pushing with the incredible advances in precision agriculture - but the garden machinery sector shouldn't feel left out. I'm aware that sometimes representatives of this field might feel that their products offer little appeal to the younger generations - 'unsexy' is a word one frequently hears bandied about.

However, I feel it's perfectly possible to argue that there are plenty of manufacturers of this description producing exciting and advanced products for the domestic market.

This week for example, I had the privilege to visit one such manufacturing facility - STIHL's manufacturing base in Tirol, Austria.

Many dealers will have visited here before, perhaps when it was still known as the Viking factory. When I last visited, three years ago it was the green liveried machines which were rolling off the production line - nowadays the future is of course all orange.

The place was huge before, but in the intervening years since I last went, it has increased tremendously in size and capacity. And whilst traditional petrol products are still part of the company's present and future, the main focus of the presentations I attended this week were very much all about the new technologies which they are promoting. Clearly this means a prevalence of new cordless and robotic machines.

It was very interesting, because also part of this press visit that I attended, were many members of the mainstream gardening press. Journalists who write the gardening columns for national newspapers, magazines and blogs. Mixing with these guys, which I don't often have cause to do, it struck me that whilst in our sector we have been discussing cordless and robotics quite seriously for a number of years now, I got the impression to these writers, the concepts were still pretty radical with a genuine quality of the unknown.

The publications they write for will increasingly be publicising this technology to the gardening public, who are of course both your customers and indeed your potential employees. The more this tech is talked about in the mainstream media, it should hopefully help in raising the perception of garden machinery, in the minds of the less well informed, from something old, polluting and greasy to something shiny, modern and advanced.

Testing a mixture of new battery and petrol mowers in the spectacular setting of STIHL Tirol

At STIHL Tirol we were shown and were able to test some new handheld machinery, some of which haven't been officially announced yet, new domestic mowers and new professional mowers. Also we heard of some interesting control developments for the iMows.

The new smart integration for the robots means the autonomous units can now be issued commands via smart watches integrated with the iMow app; via Amazon Alexa; and via innogy SmartHome, which is an advanced home control system being integrated into some new build housing. STIHL also said how they were in negotiations with other smart control providers like Google Assistant to establish contracts with those guys as well.

Again developments like this all could have the potential to appeal to tech savvy youngsters, who might be interested in working in a sector where it will be commonplace for them to deal with the latest gadgets.

STIHL told the press this week they are very much still a premium brand, albeit one with an eye on both ends of the market, with battery products for both entry-level domestic consumers and high-end professional users.

With companies such as these in the industry, investing heavily in new product development and, crucially, in marketing these the products to the public to increase awareness of what's going on in our sector, it would be great to think we can enter the new decade with a positive outlook.

New technology, such as I saw coming out of Austria this week, will hopefully keep both new customers coming in through your doors, as well encouraging the next generation to think about a career in the industry.