North-West contractor Steve Jones of Hoof Trimming Ltd based at Tarporley, has been working flat out making and wrapping round silage bales across Shropshire and Cheshire this summer.
“This year and last year are like comparing chalk and cheese,” says Steve. “After good first cuts, this time last year baling had come to a standstill for three months, because of the drought. This year, the grass has just kept on growing and growing. We usually make about 10 bales an acre, but on heavy second cuts we have been easily doing 14 bales.
“Last year we didn’t use all the wrap we had bought and carried some over to this year. And we have re-ordered twice this season!”
Steve, who set up contracting within his original cattle hoof trimming business in 2010, ventured into bale wrapping five years ago. He wanted to offer something that no other contractor in the area was, deciding on the Film&Film option.
Rather than holding the bale together with net, the McHale Fusion 3 Plus combiwrapper, uses Baletite plastic film. This produces a compact, dense bale which has significantly more air squeezed out of it in the bale chamber, before it is wrapped with six layers SiltotitePro. This creates a highly effective airtight seal which ensures high silage quality is maintained.
Film&Film wrapping also provides benefits for the farmer when feeding. Bales can be opened quickly and efficiently, manually or with a bale shear, with the Baletite peeling away cleanly, as no silage becomes enmeshed in it as with netwrap.
It is also easier to recycle the film after feed-out. As both films, Baletite and SilotitePro are made from polythene they can be recycled together and placed in the same bin without any need to separate them, unlike netwrap, which is not widely or easily recycled.
“This year I did a bit of a trial comparing SilotitePro with ordinary, cheaper plastic wrap,” Steve explains. “There was a real positive difference. There is more wrap per roll and there is definitely more stretch in the film, so I am making an extra ten bales per pair of rolls. This also saves me time, as I am making more bales before having to replenish the baler, which on the long days I am doing at the moment is very welcome.”
Caption:
Contractor Steve Jones has been much busier wrapping bales in 2019 than he was last year
