Silage bales or pit silage

Location
Cleveland
Single use plastic is likely to be outlawed or taxed out of economic use in the near future....I reckon wrapping silage bales will be history within a year or two.....hay or pit silage or maybe reusable silage bags. But I’d think twice about buying a wrapper.
Well if they fudging recycled it wouldn’t be single use....annoys the hell out of me tipping it in the quarry
 

Jdunn55

Member
Single use plastic is likely to be outlawed or taxed out of economic use in the near future....I reckon wrapping silage bales will be history within a year or two.....hay or pit silage or maybe reusable silage bags. But I’d think twice about buying a wrapper.
What about the new clear plastic that is now available? Meant to be easily recycled? Silage pits do NOT work for everyone or for every occasion. What about my 15 acres of third cut I do? too wet to turn to hay and I can hardly get a contractor in to forage it. The net on bales is 10x worse than the plastic as no one will recycle it. Unless theres a viable alternative I cant see it being outlawed just yet personally.
 

sheepman1

Member
Location
, Co.Down
Single use plastic is likely to be outlawed or taxed out of economic use in the near future....I reckon wrapping silage bales will be history within a year or two.....hay or pit silage or maybe reusable silage bags. But I’d think twice about buying a wrapper.



Realistically 20 or 30 years away from an alternative
 

tr250

Member
Location
Northants
We have always been clamp since I remember this year we have put 3rd cut into bales for various reasons main ones being one clamp still had some in it we needed space for machine storage and we had a lot of beans to cut so couldn’t put silage tops on trailers. We do all work ourselves but had to pay someone to wrap the bales it seemed very expensive and so so slow to cart them one bale at a time to the trailer then one at a time to stack. You also need a lot better weather and they don’t chop in diet feeder very fast. But on other hand we have more indoor space and they don’t go off at turnout when we only have a few cattle inside to feed
 

@dlm

Member
What about the new clear plastic that is now available? Meant to be easily recycled? Silage pits do NOT work for everyone or for every occasion. What about my 15 acres of third cut I do? too wet to turn to hay and I can hardly get a contractor in to forage it. The net on bales is 10x worse than the plastic as no one will recycle it. Unless theres a viable alternative I cant see it being outlawed just yet personally.
It’s a difficult one. I’m far from a massive greenie but the single use plastics is getting out of control. New clear plastic that I know nothing about is great, but we can’t cope with volume of recycling so baled silage is going to get wrath of public along with unbalanced methane argument which we will see exaggerated next week on bbc programme. It’s become worse by the year and can’t see it changing. US 4 litre cars fine but our diesel cars killing the climate. The Chinese industrial revolution is very similar to our Victorian period. Massive increased output at the cot of environmental conditions and human welfare. But cheap output will be driving factor on scale in everything. Sadly not welfare or quality and as sad as it is we are kidding ourselves otherwise. So baled wrap will get a slating on environmental grounds, but if keeps your meat cheap then it will be fine. Non production schemes will be in , in a couple of years. Environmental schemes etc without a shadow of a doubt. Have had an offer to use a few barns that would generate an income to cover cost of development in 18 months. Then rent would return over 10% of land value. Sadly farming has reached its end in a reasonably profitable business. It’s sustainable but it’s not in a business sense viable. Saw on another thread of loans in 1980s @20 something %. Dad was in same boat and was paying 200k a year off in interest. Very few subs. Things were good. Land values increased massively, interest rates will not be at where they are now for next 4 years for sure. Always been positive believe it or not but last 4 years signs been coming more than ever and I have invested as much capital outside of stock and into property and business as possible. I hope I am horribly wrong but silage wrap cost will escalate, inspections will increase, sales will stay the same , only thing that may prove my high up supermarket mate wrong is Chinese situation. Could be only saving grace, or will they massively increase chicken production rather than purchase from abroad. Would be my bet
 

puppet

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
sw scotland
If you have a pit then use it. Using SPH with trailers or a forage wagon will always be cheaper than baling and a fraction of the plastic.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
we are looking at our 1st real spring grazing year, the silage conundrum, we have h rye to put 4/500 tons in the pit, fine, but the grass that gets ahead of the cows, do you wait for enough to open pit, or do you bale it, when it is at ideal stage? We hate bale wrap, it always smells of cats, and it lingers on you, and ends up looking a mess ! But, top quality bales, would be ideal for y/s, or do we go the next step, and make into hay, weather permitting ?
It’s a difficult one. I’m far from a massive greenie but the single use plastics is getting out of control. New clear plastic that I know nothing about is great, but we can’t cope with volume of recycling so baled silage is going to get wrath of public along with unbalanced methane argument which we will see exaggerated next week on bbc programme. It’s become worse by the year and can’t see it changing. US 4 litre cars fine but our diesel cars killing the climate. The Chinese industrial revolution is very similar to our Victorian period. Massive increased output at the cot of environmental conditions and human welfare. But cheap output will be driving factor on scale in everything. Sadly not welfare or quality and as sad as it is we are kidding ourselves otherwise. So baled wrap will get a slating on environmental grounds, but if keeps your meat cheap then it will be fine. Non production schemes will be in , in a couple of years. Environmental schemes etc without a shadow of a doubt. Have had an offer to use a few barns that would generate an income to cover cost of development in 18 months. Then rent would return over 10% of land value. Sadly farming has reached its end in a reasonably profitable business. It’s sustainable but it’s not in a business sense viable. Saw on another thread of loans in 1980s @20 something %. Dad was in same boat and was paying 200k a year off in interest. Very few subs. Things were good. Land values increased massively, interest rates will not be at where they are now for next 4 years for sure. Always been positive believe it or not but last 4 years signs been coming more than ever and I have invested as much capital outside of stock and into property and business as possible. I hope I am horribly wrong but silage wrap cost will escalate, inspections will increase, sales will stay the same , only thing that may prove my high up supermarket mate wrong is Chinese situation. Could be only saving grace, or will they massively increase chicken production rather than purchase from abroad. Would be my bet

unfortuantly, you are right. Single use plastic is already in the 'sight' of enviromentalists, plastic carrier bags for example. As a country, we are fairly 'green', but, because of our benign society, people can demonstrate, without any comeback on them, so we are an easy target. But, where the big problems are, China, India etc, they couldn't demonstrate without fear of severe comeback, so they stick with the easy target, us. Our farming systems are under pressure, to stop using this drug, or that spray, but, what they don not realise, is that imported produce, which is cheaper, have no restrictions, or few, on sprays, drugs, hormones, insecticides, and animal welfare. If they are really dedicated, or green, they should go and demonstrate in those countries, but they don't, i wonder why ?
 
we are looking at our 1st real spring grazing year, the silage conundrum, we have h rye to put 4/500 tons in the pit, fine, but the grass that gets ahead of the cows, do you wait for enough to open pit, or do you bale it, when it is at ideal stage? We hate bale wrap, it always smells of cats, and it lingers on you, and ends up looking a mess ! But, top quality bales, would be ideal for y/s, or do we go the next step, and make into hay, weather permitting ?


unfortuantly, you are right. Single use plastic is already in the 'sight' of enviromentalists, plastic carrier bags for example. As a country, we are fairly 'green', but, because of our benign society, people can demonstrate, without any comeback on them, so we are an easy target. But, where the big problems are, China, India etc, they couldn't demonstrate without fear of severe comeback, so they stick with the easy target, us. Our farming systems are under pressure, to stop using this drug, or that spray, but, what they don not realise, is that imported produce, which is cheaper, have no restrictions, or few, on sprays, drugs, hormones, insecticides, and animal welfare. If they are really dedicated, or green, they should go and demonstrate in those countries, but they don't, i wonder why ?
We found that cutting the pastures at the correct stage/same stage as grazing does have a lot of positives. The regrowth is just a lot better. We use to leave it so it gets longer that you get more bales off but didnt realise the effect on the grass itself. We now cut the grass at the correct stage even if its yielding 10 or 15 bales a hectare. It then also keeps that grass in cycle.
 
If you’ve got the pits use them don’t bother with a heavy sheet on top to roll up and just cut a strip off with a sharp knife loads quicker than jumping in and out the tractor opening bales

and always throw the tyres off not backwards
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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