DEAR SIR: I refer to your article in the Irish Farmers Journal dated 19 May titled “Silage Wrap and netting costs”.

Firstly, the key point for all your farmer clients is their objective to enisle high-quality forage so that they obtain high levels of animal production on their farms.

In the case of bale silage, the best-quality silage is achieved by applying a heavier/thicker plastic or by applying more wraps of a thinner material.

The thicker the plastic the better the oxygen barrier which results in well-preserved forage. Inadequate amounts of plastic on bales can lead to mouldy silage and in some cases to the complete loss of forage.

Farmers should be made aware of the reel weight differences and the plastic thickness differences. On the Irish market, the vast majority of silage wrap brands are all the same length at 1,500m and are all the same height at 750mm.

The critical difference is in the thickness of the plastic. As you can see from Table 1, a survey conducted in 2017 shows a huge variation in both reel weights and in the thickness of the plastics.

So making a decision based on price between Brand A and Brand G is very misleading as there is a difference of over 17% in the reel weight and the plastic thickness between the two materials.

Brand A is worth €14 to €15 more than Brand G. And where the farmer applies Brand A over Brand G he/she would be applying 17% more plastic at all times irrespective of whether they use four layers, six layers or eight layers.

The benefits will accrue in the form of better-quality silage as the thicker plastic provides a better oxygen barrier all the time.

If one was to use a price-only comparison (as was the case in the article) and assume Brand G could be purchased at €75/reel, then Brand A is worth €88/reel. So average price comparisons on a per-reel only basis are very misleading.