High-capacity forage wagons have been selling like hotcakes on the Continent over the past few years, but they don’t really suit the small fields, awkward clamps and narrow lanes of the UK so sales here have been pretty sluggish.

However, Grassland saw several makers launching smaller, more practical versions to try and strengthen their grasp on the 100 units-a-year British market.

See also: Forage wagons benefit farmers and contractors

Kverneland and Claas have both recently added new models at the small end of their ranges. The former launched a new 40cu m version, but it was the 45cu m hoovering up the silage at the showground.

It is designed as an owner-operator machine and uses a 2.1m-wide camless pick-up at the front. The six tine bars are each fitted with 16 teeth arranged in a V-shape pattern to improve the evenness of crop flow.

Further back there is an 800mm rotor and 35 chopping knives, which feed into a box capable of carrying just short of 9t.

Empty weight is another 7.1t, so the 120hp requirement seems pretty modest. Standard shoes are 560 60-22.5s and the trailer comes with a ticket price of roughly £60,000.

At the other end of the scale are the 70cu m and 80cu m versions. The latter is an eye-watering £122,000 that can clamber beyond the £130,000 mark if you spec 800-sized Michelin rubber.

Empty weight is 15t, it will require 250hp on the front and you will need big clamps, big fields and a big wallet if you want one.