Plastic free farming - somebody needs to do something.

[Bury the Trash]

Sisal wears string guides etc more than plastic .

 

[egbert]

curiouser and curiouser said Alice.
I'm on string on the round baler...for 2 pins i might give it a try.
As said, airtight seal within wrap should save those on silage....and hay/
I too recall small bales needing careful handling on outsides of stack....but roundies indoors on end? hmm.

Anyway...that doesn't get around the wrap issue, which is the biggie for me

 

[Sharpy]

curiouser and curiouser said Alice.
I'm on string on the round baler...for 2 pins i might give it a try.
As said, airtight seal within wrap should save those on silage....and hay/
I too recall small bales needing careful handling on outsides of stack....but roundies indoors on end? hmm.

Anyway...that doesn't get around the wrap issue, which is the biggie for me

I have round baled grass (setaside stuff to be dumped) and tied with binder twine, farmers (sound) reasoning was so there was no plastic string in the dump pile.

 

[egbert]

I have just emailed a rope/string supplier who does sisal string, and plastic bale cord.
Sure to be off for a few days, but we'll see!

 

[egbert]

I have round baled grass (setaside stuff to be dumped) and tied with binder twine, farmers (sound) reasoning was so there was no plastic string in the dump pile.

should you be doing that again, if you'd be as kind to let me have a grid ref, and i'll send a few lorry loads of Galloway cows to help tidy it up!

(seriously, that raises the question of how sisal goes in a cows guts?? anyone know? Poly twine and net will sit there building up for ages I understand)

 

[Henarar]

curiouser and curiouser said Alice.
I'm on string on the round baler...for 2 pins i might give it a try.
As said, airtight seal within wrap should save those on silage....and hay/
I too recall small bales needing careful handling on outsides of stack....but roundies indoors on end? hmm.

Anyway...that doesn't get around the wrap issue, which is the biggie for me

as long as its recycled properly its not a problem

 

[newholland]

@egbert I would be interested to know how you get on with sisal string quote ….. do they do string strong enough for big square balers or is it only the finer round bale or little bale string available?

 

[egbert]

as long as its recycled properly its not a problem

funnily enough, I was chatting with someone quite removed from agri, and very lucid.
he pointed out that (properly) landfilling plastic isn't the end of the world.
Burning it releases the carbon,
while leaving it lying about - subsequently risking letting it escape into the wider environs strangles dolphins etc

 

[egbert]

I'

@egbert I would be interested to know how you get on with sisal string quote ….. do they do string strong enough for big square balers or is it only the finer round bale or little bale string available?

ll report back when/if I hear ought.

 

[jondear]

Tj

Quite a few west of here are using lime as "silage sheet" with good results, downside of course is that it's bulky and mined. Upside is that you simply chomp through it and is non-toxic to cattle and feeder wagons.

I HATE plastics, especially single-use plastics, so we're looking to shift away from ensiled feed as much as possible and look to what we can do without it as a staple part of wintering - storing more feed on the landscape, rather than raping it at both ends, the benefits being happier soil biology and a soil that better copes with treading in the wet season

The autumn / winter that we have had this year has been so wet very little cattle would be able to survive in fields let alone without supplementary feeding.
Plastic bales do want looking at .!
No body should be burning it these days!

 

[newholland]

Its only when surrounded by heaps of used silage plastic, string and wrap in the middle of winter that I realise change is required...…. in mid summer when rain is on the horizon it is easy for the environmental worries to be conveniently forgotten.

 

[egbert]

tried another for good measure.
Have used the phrase ....I'm looking for something more 'Greta friendly'

 

[egbert]

@egbert I would be interested to know how you get on with sisal string quote ….. do they do string strong enough for big square balers or is it only the finer round bale or little bale string available?

hmm....it's making me think.
those baling straw in big squares would be brave to risk leaving them in heaps in the field..... the cord goes within a season in ground contact.
(mind, if that made my suppliers pick their soddin bales up and put em indoors before they take rain, I'd be a lot happier, and coughing a lot less)

 

[Sharpy]

should you be doing that again, if you'd be as kind to let me have a grid ref, and i'll send a few lorry loads of Galloway cows to help tidy it up!

(seriously, that raises the question of how sisal goes in a cows guts?? anyone know? Poly twine and net will sit there building up for ages I understand)

It was 15 years ago, rules were it had to be cut, and if conserved only fed to the farmers stock, no others, or sold hence it was dumped. Its plant derived so should be ok cattle wise, and finally someone is selling binder twine on eBay, in Winkleigh, Devon! Price is a bit steep through.

 

[egbert]

Tj

The autumn / winter that we have had this year has been so wet very little cattle would be able to survive in fields let alone without supplementary feeding.
Plastic bales do want looking at .!
No body should be burning it these days!

Nobody indeed.

Mind, I note whenever a fresh ding appears on one of the trucks/vehicles around the yard, it's always Mr Nobody that did it.
busy little sod he is.

 

[newholland]

I'

ll report back when/if I hear ought.

Maybe we can get a Sisal string TFF special deal!

 

[newholland]

Try going to sleep at 9pm on a dark night.... the toxic fumes are not funny when you live in a valley.

 

[Farma Parma]

But TFF doesn't have the leverage of 41,000 members. All it has is a long list of people who have at some point registered with the site.

I bet 20000 of the members on here aint even farmers...
Poss workers & generally agri interested folks... who knows
what about all the Input Sharks just seeing what were moaning about

 

[newholland]

You forgot the journalists signed up in disguise.... This thread would make a good article FW, FG, DF, Forager and everybody else.

 

[newholland]

An estimated 2-3 million tons of plastics are used in agriculture each year and the use of plastic in agriculture is so prevalent it is now referred to as ‘plasticulture’. By far the biggest use of plastic in agriculture is for plastic mulch films and silage wrap. These are typically made from polyethylene (PE) because it is cheap, easily processed, highly durable and flexible. However; it is because of PE’s non-biodegradable nature, that it is now becoming an environmental concern. Rather than biodegrade, PE undergoes a process of light induced ‘oxo degradation’, which results in the breakdown of PE film, in the presence of light, to microplastics, that are unobservable to the human eye. The concern here is that microplastics are finding their way into the food chain and the effects of microplastic bioaccumulation on animal and human health are not yet fully understood.