Silage is grass pickled in its own juice. This is done by packing it tightly together and sealing out the air.

There are 2 ways of doing this :

Either by big bales ( the large round/square ones you can just see in the lefthand photograph covered in plastic) or in a "clamp".

Our clamp measures 10m by 27m by 3m and when full will hold about 650 tonnes.

It has walls made from girders and railway sleepers and has a sealed concrete base.

After the grass has been cut and put in it is sealed by covering it with a plastic sheet weighed down by old car tyres.

Any excess juice that may leak out during this process is called effluent.

This is collected in a 20,000 litre tank to be spread to be spread on the fields for careful disposal as it can be a powerful pollutant.

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