Main-season first-cut silage has kicked off over the past week on farms across Ireland with the arrival of more settled weather conditions.
Round-bale silage is a popular means of securing fodder on many farms and as farmers using round bales will know, the conventional round bale is initially bound together with netting.
This netting can be difficult to remove when feeding out bales. As well as this, bale plastic can be recycled easily but bale netting is much more difficult for farmers to recycle.
With this in mind, Co. Cavan-based agricultural contractor Eamon Hewitt has recently invested in a round-baler that has removed the need for netting on bale silage.
The baler in the video above is a Kuhn FBP 3135 fixed chamber BalePack. This baler-wrapper combination consists of a standard FB 3135 fixed-chamber baler with an Opticut Integral Rotor that is merged with the Intelliwrap bale-wrapping system.
This baler was purchased in Martin’s Garage, Bailieborough, Co. Cavan.
The bale chamber consists of 18 PowerTrack rollers which are designed to generate high bale densities and provide the operator with a consistent bale rotation.
As can be seen from the video above, the bale leaves the chamber with a layer of net replacement film binding the bale, replacing where the netting would traditionally be. The bale lands on the wrapper where it is sealed with bale plastic and is left on the field for collection.
The no-net bales can be handled and stacked in a similar manner to a conventional net-bound bale.
Silage bale stacking
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has reminded farmers of the storage requirements for silage bales.
The Good Agricultural Practice for Protection of Waters Regulations, known as ‘GAP regulations’, came into force on March 2022 and gave legal effect to the Nitrates Directive and Ireland’s Nitrates Action Programme (NAP).
The DAFM said that as of this year, silage bales, including high dry matter silage or haylage, can only be stored a maximum of two bales high, in the absence of adequate facilities for the collection and storage of any effluent that may arise.
Bales must continue to be stored at least 20m from surface water or a drinking water abstraction point, as required under the previous GAP regulations.
The department said that these requirements also apply to the storage of haylage.
“Farmers with low dry matter silage bales should consider themselves whether it is appropriate to stack their bales up to two high in the absence of appropriate effluent collection facilities,” it said.