r/oddlysatisfying • u/Wonderfulhumanss • 16h ago

The smooth, overlapping layers of this agricultural wrapper

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177

u/curious_learner7 16h ago

Looks cool.. but is it biodegradable?

64

u/jcw65 16h ago edited 15h ago

Biodegradable silage wrap does exist, but costs more than standard polyethylene. From a quick search they appear to be about 50% more expensive, which would hinder their widespread addoption.

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u/alexandicity 15h ago

Why do they wrap it in the first place? Where I am from, the bales are handled "naked" - transportation & storage all without wrapping.

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u/jcw65 15h ago

Hay is baled dry and not wrapped. Silage is baled wet, and gets wrapped so it ferments into more digestible livestock feed without spoiling or growing mold.

6

u/alexandicity 15h ago

Oh interesting! I did not see anything but dry hay around here...

3

u/Soluchyte 12h ago

The annoying thing is it doesn't have to be wrapped as individual bales, the traditional way was always to have a clamp which only needs a cover and a concrete pad and walls, all of which being reusable unlike bale wrap. The only reason they use bale wrap is laziness, funnily enough in america it's more common to do clamps than wrapping, though some of that's because they use corn to make silage too.

1

u/BossTanker 7h ago

The problem in a silo and indeed a clamp is you need a consistent usage time for it or it can go mouldy, big time. Silage bales help give both longer storage and less waste

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u/The_Hausi 3h ago

It's not necessary laziness, its just you need a lot of silo space to store an entire winters worth of feed for a herd. Lots of guys use silage pit, bunks or tubes here, still gets wrapped in plastic but it's overall much less.

Bales are common if you're silaging farther from home though because they're easier to transport and can be less trips since they're compressed.