Green Chopping in CT (pic)

Crew from Miller's Fairvue Farm in Woodstock, CT making green chop (? or grass silage...I'm not sure the difference!) on Paine Hill Road in Woodstock the Friday before Memorial Day back in May...sorry it took me so long to remember to download the photos from my camera!

The harvester is a Class 860. Not sure what the Deere was which was combining the rows ahead of the Class.

If I've read the history of the area right, these fields have been owned by the May family since a few years after the settlement of Woodstock...in 1686. Miller now keeps his dry cows here -- he's one of the largest dairymen in the state, with the milkers and calfs at his main farm next to the Woodstock Fairgrounds on Route 171; his heifers are down on another farm in Putnam.

I've long dreamed of retrofitting a 510 Massey with a blower spout and removing the grain tank in favor of a wagon to be pulled behind, though I've been told I'd need a much heavier transmission to pull a loaded wagon through a field.

It just strikes me that "don't pack the ground" is a religion among farmers out here, and carrying the grain onboard the machine violates that very same rule.

The haylage I've seen around has been stored in piles (think bunker silos...without the bunker) under plastic sheeting. The dairy down the road from me did use bags for a few years, but went back to piles.

It's an impressive site to see 12 rows of 8-10 foot tall corn disappear at the rate it does...

It's an impressive site to see 12 rows of 8-10 foot tall corn disappear at the rate it does...

When I was young, it was all dump trucks being driven alongside the harvester (usually a tractor pulled unit). During High School in the mid 80s you saw the transition to even the small farmers going with "chop wagons" as they're called around here. It's now the exception to see a truck driving alongside. Part of it is loss blowing over the truck; but also the lack of manpower to keep a truck always alongside.

Another common variation is to have one guy running a harvester / wagon, and one truck driver...and *two* trucks -- driver drops off an empty truck, and heads back with the full one. The harvester dumps into the empty truck when they're ready and goes back to harvesting.