I meet the judges out the back, where a livestock trailer holds the entries for all five categories: baled silage, baled haylage, grass pit, maize pit and whole crop pit; this last one is a seed mix of wheat, barley and grasses sown specifically for silage and cut in June at a young age. The smell from the bags is potent – too potent for the pub – but it’s also a beautiful smell; when you get a really good bit of silage, you know it. It looks, dare I say, almost edible.