This is the silage pile at the dairy. They cover it with white plastic and hold that down with tires.

 

 

 

 

Two buggies waiting their turn to dump.

 

Two tractors pushing and packing the silage pile down.

 

The silage pile from our road about a mile away. That tiny point to the right of the tractor is the top of the barn. That pile is very high.

 

 

A buggy up close.

 

The crop adjusters came the day before harvest and took samples out of each field. This one averaged about 228 bushels per acre. Our overall average is 175 bushels per acre this year.

This is the chopper Justin Flax uses for our harvest.

One semi is full and leaving for the dairy, one is beside the chopper (you can see the white cab just past the front of the chopper) and one semi is turning to get lined up behind the one being filled.

They cut a hole in the middle of the field so that they can go up and down both sides. It’s faster to do that than to do the outsides of the field where you have to drive farther.

Little bit of dust flying??

Here they come down the middle. You can just barely see the chopper between the 2nd and 3rd rows.

You can see the four disks that pull the corn stalks in. The silver blades underneath the green are what cuts the stalks off.

 

Here’s one of the trucks dumping their load at the dairy. The guy in the tractor is running up and down the hill of silage to pack it down.

This pile will be much longer and taller before we’re all done. We’ve just gotten about 160 acres finished out of 716.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corn silage harvest began in earnest a few days ago. The dairy we sell the corn to hires a crew to chop and haul the silage to the dairy where it gets packed into a bunker silo.

We know the chopper driver and his crew and I got to ride with them for a while.

Here’s the semi truck lining up beside the chopper to be filled.

This is the main separator that pushes the stalks down and guides them into the chopper. He takes 8 rows at a time. Some choppers take 10 rows. Claus (the manufacturer of the chopper) is working on a machine that will take 20 rows at a time.

 

You can see the chopped up corn silage coming out of the spout and into the semi. It took about 4.5 minutes to fill this truck.

There is goes filled to take the silage to the dairy about a mile away. There were six trucks running this day.

Justin Flax, the chopper driver, runs by GPS.

There is a camera on the side of the chopper spout and that box above his hand shows the spout emptying into the truck.

 

These are three of the four disks that pull the corn into the machine.