TECHNIAL: Most farms now have a means of handling heavier bales. Which begs the question: if you increase the bale diameter, can you save on wrap? Together with Krone we set about making different diameter bales and measuring how much film was used.
As a general rule of thumb, silage bales will measure in the region of 1.20-1.24m in diameter, with fixedchamber machines being the tool of choice particularly in Ireland. However, could making larger diameter bales save you money by reducing film use per ton and also the time taken to move bales? To answer these questions, we teamed up with Krone and used their variable-chamber combination to produce different size bales and compare the stats.
General conditions
The trial was carried out in second-cut silage, so yields were not overly heavy. The field was mown two day before baling, but in the intervening days the grass was drenched by a thunderstorm. On baling day the dry matter content was 42%, and the grass was rowedup by a two-rotor central delivery rake. We left the baling to a seasoned operator who produced the uniform 1.25m, 1.35m and 1.45m diameter bales at 80% pressure that we were looking for. We wrapped them with six layers of Krone’s ‘Excellent’ silage film. The temperature was About 25°C during our field test — relatively good conditions for the film.
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