Turning seed-corn waste into want

A Connections Web Bonus

Click on each thumbnail for a print quality image. Photos by Tom Campbell.

Shade and downtime are rare commodities when the crew is busy cutting seed corn rows, so cloud covers and breaks are greatly appreciated.		Even full growth seed corn looks short when viewed from the cab of the male row silage harvesters.
These steers in Texas caused a mini-stampede when they smelled fresh silage cut by Anderson's crew near their pasture.		If there is no client to buy the silage product, Anderson simple opens the rear door on the harvester and spreads the silage back onto the ground.
A hydraulic lift raises the bed of the harvester for dumping into a semi trailer. A conveyor on the bottom of the bed draws the silage out of the harvester bed.		In the field, Jim Anderson trouble shoots problems on a silage harvester.
In the field, Anderson (left) uses his truck as an office. Here he goes over a field map with Dale Colter while working in the Terre Haute, IN. area.		A pair of mirrors connected to the cab allow the harvester operator to monitor the silage as he dumps it into a semi truck.
Machine operator Dale Colter carries plenty of liquids with him in the cab. Temperatures once reached 133 degrees while he was harvesting in Texas.		Some customers choose to store the silage in long, plastic bags (left). Others store it in huge concrete bunkers like this feedlot in Texas.
Flooded roads in Texas posed little threat to the silage harvesters since they are built so high off the ground.		Working in unison, Anderson's three harvesters, named Sally, Gonzo and Fiddler, turn every fifth row of a seed corn field into livestock feed.