The two-day competition starts on Friday with the New Zealand pair putting in hours of training at practise stubble plots between thunder storms last week.
At one stage about 100mm of rain fell overnight into the morning, but following sunshine dried out the paddock for good ploughing.
Mr Mehrtens expected soil conditions to be similar to the world championships in Latvia last year where he finished fourth in the reversible class.
Runner-up in Kenya in 2017, he was keen to try to top this in Estonia or next year’s Czech Republic, which he has also qualified for by virtue of his "14th or 15th" win at the national championships held near Hamilton this year. In May he told the Otago Daily Times he was "knocking on the door".
"I’ve had a couple of thirds in the individual grass and stubble days, but it’s anybody’s game because the ground conditions dictate a lot and it’s just the way it is. You take it good on the day."
He was yet to compete in either country and would be happy if the soil types were anything like Latvia.
"That was lovely soil and the best soil I’ve ever seen in the world. It was just nice, silty, loamy stuff and it had enough moisture in it to peel off the board although it did get wet there towards the end. A lot of people couldn’t handle the wet and you just have to handle the conditions on the day. I was really happy last year with making some tidy plots."
His Ford tractor was steam-cleaned and packed for Estonia as soon as the national event was over.
He found borrowed gear did not work at the top level and always takes the Ford despite the expense of carting it around the world.
Southland’s Mr Dillon is competing in the conventional class.
Estonia will be his second appearance in the world event and he has competed in 23 national finals.
He has also taken his 1993 Massey Ferguson 362 and 1994 Kverneland plough with him.
Mr Dillon has also qualified for the Czech Republic event and plans to store the tractor in Europe for the competition after the Estonia championships end.
