The Limerick-based machinery innovator SAMCO was one of the first to bring the round baler to Ireland and now it is introducing a machine that has been in operation on the continent for a number of years – the SAMCO Bag Press.

This machine creates a sausage-like feed store which can be a handy solution to on-farm storage and reduces waste when feeding out. Three years ago, SAMCO launched this machine on the Irish market, but the demise of crimping for the last few years reduced the need for the innovative machine.

At the moment, SAMCO has three bag press machines going around Ireland bagging feed. Gordan Shine explained: “This week, we will have one of the bag press machines with a crimping machine in Waterford. The other two bag press machines will be in other locations. The machines are transported around on a truck or behind a fast tractor so availability is almost nationwide.”

I asked Gordan what were farmers ensiling and he said it varied from crimped grain, maize silage, brewers grains, and some were even mixing fodder beet with maize silage half and half. He said: “Some farmers that have 30 acres of maize are ensiling 20 acres in a pit and then maybe putting 10 acres in through the bag press for feeding out a smaller amount when cows go out to grass next March.”

Bag size

The size of the plastic feed bag varies from a diameter of 1.5m to 2m or 2.5m, depending on what volume is required to store and storage space available.

Gordan said they can work the bag press anywhere but a farmer must be conscious of the time of the year when he will be feeding out, so ideally it needs to be made on hardcore. On high dry matter feeds there is little or no seepage, but on some wet feeds such as fodder beet or some maize varieties, there can be some seepage.

The real benefit of this type of storage is the small feed face open to the air which reduces waste when feeding out these types of high dry matter feeds. It also offers a solution to those who might not have a pit for making a small amount of an alternative forage.

Costs

SAMCO charges €16/m for completing this type of storage on your farm. This means it comes down to how much feed you can pack into a metre.

Gordan said: “With the large 2.5m diameter bag, you can fit 3.25t/m and 2.5t/m with the slightly smaller 2m diameter.” For storing crimped grains, which may be more popular this year with grain price cheaper and where normally farmers are storing upwards of 50t, the charge is €10/t for crimping and €10/t for bagging.

The machine can move fast and the crimping machine can process 40t per hour while the bagging machine can process about 15t per hour. The bagging machine can process about 60t to 70t of maize silage per hour. The long bags can be made to suit any length.

When I enquired about keeping vermin away, Gordan suggested that all plastic is pulled tightly around the feed and birds are kept away by pulling a net over the round bag.