Silawrap, based at Gorey, Co Wexford, has launched a new net replacement film (NRF) for farmers and contractors. This film is used in place of netwrap and has been tested on McHale Fusion baler wrappers in Irish conditions. The new product has been tested on Orkel HiQ and the New Holland Combi machines, also an Orkel design. Maize balers that can also use this film include Orkel and Goweil, according to Silawrap.

Maurice Keady of Silawrap claims that the NRF product adds an extra layer of film to the bale and provides an enhanced oxygen barrier for better silage preservation. He believes that the system, while still relatively small in terms of overall usage, will help to reduce the amounts of mould growth that is so often seen in silage bales.

He believes that the NRF system compresses the bales even tighter than using netwrap and this keeps the bales in better shape during storage. This NRF is different to the usual Silawrap film.

It feels stronger and has less stretch, giving it more strength to hold the bale together.

Maurice says that it is critically important that the roll of NRF is positioned properly on the machine. This is because the film must wrap over the edge of the bale before it gets a layer of the usual wrapping film on the wrapper unit.

New transparent wrapping film from Coveris

Coveris Flexibles Austria GmbH has developed a new transparent silage wrap product, called Agristretch Crystal, for bale wrapping. This new patented product is a transparent bale wrap, which is claimed to offer equivalent silage quality to that of coloured films and can be applied by all makes of bale wrappers.

Coveris Flexibles Austria GmbH has more than 25 years of experience in manufacturing agricultural stretch films. The company was previously known as Britton Unterland GmbH.

The idea for Crystal Agri Stretch Film was borne following meetings with farmers and contractors at the 2011 Agritechnica Show in Germany. These farmers were discussing the issue of using, selling and buying bales and how they could not tell the quality of the silage inside the black, green and white bales before opening.

This was followed by two years of development work and on-the-field trials. The company worked closely with a very large Austrian contractor to test the product, which is this year available from Coveris on the Irish market.

In early 2012, the first film was made and tested. For the first cut of 2013, further trials were carried out where half of the bales were wrapped in the new Crystal film with the other half wrapped in an established agricultural stretch film.

In late 2013, the bales were opened and the silage was tested at LFZ Raumberg-Gumpenstein, which is one of Europe’s leading independent research centres for the testing of agricultural products.

The tests carried out looked at the quality of the silage, the fermentation losses and, finally, the microbiology and aerobic stability of the silage.

Test results showed no significant difference for all silage tested. The tests confirmed that the silage wrapped in the Crystal film was of the same high quality to that of the silage wrapped in the established coloured brand.

Coveris claims that the main benefits of Crystal film include that it fits into the landscape in terms of colour and that farmers can easily recognise preservation and mould problems through the transparent film.

This also makes bale trading easier as the buyer can see any blemishes in the bale. And the new film gives additional recycling options.

Throughout the 2014 season, as an introduction to the Irish market, Donal Corrigan, business support manager for Coveris in Ireland (Tel 0044 77757 80703) will be planning to hold open days and to run the product at selected agricultural shows including the FTMTA Grass and Muck event on May 14.

Here, the Agristretch Crystal film will be used on some of the Tanco wrappers.