A GROUP of farmers and equipment manufacturers have joined forces to thank the NHS and farming industry in the largest and most cutting-edge way possible.

Chris Hartley and Lee Clarke at Trimble Agriculture came up with the idea of spraying the messages onto a farmer’s airfield near York.

Using the latest precision technology, they mapped out the 34m-high lettering and uploaded it to the tractor’s management screen, which then linked to the sprayer controls.

“We do this in farming all the time – creating exclusion zones on fields so that we don’t spray unnecessary areas, saving money and benefiting the environment,” said Mr Hartley.

The sprayer nozzles shut off to create the giant lettering in water – first thanking the NHS and, once dried, a second version thanking farmers for feeding the nation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We wanted to get together to say thank you to the NHS and to farmers – we had the idea one night and by the next our local friends and farming community had made it happen,” said Mr Hartley. “The results are quite spectacular and could probably have been seen from outer space.”