Country diary: The combine harvester is an awesome sight at night | Nicola Chester

Inkpen, North Wessex Downs: These fields still bear their wartime names, but the farmland and ecosystem are surely unrecognisableBelow the downs, across Milking Parlour and Trenchfields - two fields named during the second world war - the oilseed rape has been harvested, leaving the fields like folds in a discarded tweed jacket. The unharvested standing crop next door is blackened by desiccation from glyphosate, a last chemical dousing to make the crop more palatable and even for the combine.The evening before, we watched the combine at work. At 9pm, and with several more hours of cutting, threshing and carting to do before forecast rain, the machine was an awesome sight. Coming up the tramlines with the roar of a billion bees, lamps blazing through a swirling cloud of apocalyptic grey dust, it set our hearts racing. Continue reading...