Net Wrap | Fine Twine Products

During the past 25 years, net wrap has slowly but surely become the “go-to” material for binding round bales. Though more expensive than twine, net wrap offers a number of advantages, according to research from Wisconsin.

First, the study showed that wrapping reduces harvest losses about 1 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 wrap because net-wrapped bales shed water better.

Under the Wisconsin conditions, twine wrapped bales lost 11 percent of their weight but net wrapped bales only lost 7 percent during 5 to 12 months of outdoor storage. That’s an extra 4 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 5 percent of your hay and it costs a dollar to wrap each bale, hay only needs to be worth about $35 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 15, 20 or even 30  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 30 percent more bales per hour using net wrap.

– University of Wisconsin