The Maize Silage Campaign, Chris Lockwood. DVD, approx 83 minutes. ISBN: 978-1-908397-01-0. Now in stock at Old Pond at £16.95 inc. VAT.
In his twenty-one years of maize harvesting, Suffolk contractor Robert Self has seen all sorts of seasons from the very dry to the impossibly wet. Film-maker Chris Lockwood captured the vagaries of Robert’s final campaign, 2010.
This proved to be a reasonable year but even so the contractor had to deal with a variety of crop conditions, as Chris shows in the programme. He starts with an introduction to Robert Self’s enterprise and his machines. Then he focuses on the clamp, with a JCB Farm Master loader and tractors rolling the clamp. Later in the DVD we see another method for storing silage with a look at an Ag-Bagging machine.
There is some grass work at the beginning of the season and some late maize drilling followed by the harvesting of a tall maize crop on hills close to the river Orwell. In the workshop a continuous programme of maintenance is required, and we take a look at the setting up and sharpening required each day during the season.
We see how Robert opens up a field and works at night foraging and clamping. There are details of road transport with custom-made trailers and a look at the history of John Deere foragers. Robert’s own model is a 500hp JD 7400. The year concludes with the contractor’s last-ever field, a late crop planted as the second crop off the field after a previous cut of grass.
Chris Lockwood filmed the widely acclaimed Combine Harvesters DVDs and more recently The Rubber Track Revolution. He writes for Classic Tractor and other magazines.
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