Net Wrap vs. Twine

 By Dr. Bruce Anderson, Extension Forage Specialist University of Nebraska.

 To wrap or not to wrap, that is the question! Is net wrap a better choice than regular twine? This article will give you some figures to help you decide for yourself. Net wrapping bales aren’t cheap. Equipment costs three to four thousand dollars and plastic net is seventy five cents to a dollar more per bale than twine. Is it worth it?

Net wrap can be better three ways. Research from Wisconsin showed that net wrap reduces harvest losses about one percent. That’s how much you lose while bales are spinning many times when wrapping with twine. Storage losses are quite a bit less with net wrap because net wrapped bales shed water better. Under the Wisconsin conditions, twine wrapped bales lost eleven percent of their weight but net wrapped bales only lost seven percent during five to twelve months of outdoor storage. That’s an extra four percent feed from net wrapping and doesn’t even count the better forage quality found in net wrapped bales. A couple percent here and there may not sound like much, but if you add the harvest and storage losses together to save five percent of your hay and it costs a dollar to wrap each bale, hay only needs to be worth about thirty five dollars a ton to pay for the net wrapping material.
By far the biggest savings, though, may be time.
Net wrapping only takes a couple turns of the bale compared to fifteen, twenty, even thirty turns for twine. Waiting to finish twine wrapping wastes time, burns fuel, and adds to tractor wear and tear. As a result, you can make thirty percent more bales per hour using net wrap. Little things can make big differences. How you wrap your bales is one of those things.