WOODSTOCK, Ont. — Bagging silage may have advantages over bunker storage, but that edge disappears in a hurry if the bag is ripped and the content exposed to the atmosphere, water or rodents.
A company in the Czech Republic has an answer to the problem — simply build a better bag. Euro Bagging builds silage baggers and sells them worldwide, but when it comes to the bags themselves, the company wasn’t satisfied with what it saw on the market.
Euro Bagging wanted to supply its customers with bags that would protect the contents for a span of up to 18 months, so it set out to design and manufacture its own bags.
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Company representative Jakub Lacina, who hauled one of the company’s baggers to Woodstock in September for Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, said the bags are three layers thick with a special foil from Finland used as one of the layers.
“We make the bags ourselves in our factory. It’s three layers plastic. We know the silage can last up to 18 months in these bags. The foil is produced with an emphasis on high parameters such as tensile strength, dart drop and tear resistance,” said Lacina, adding that each bag has a serial number so it can be traced back to the production point if there’s a problem.
“For a small company, we have a big research team, so we continually make improvements on each machine we build. And we talk personally to every customer after they have used our bagger for a while, to see what would make it better. We are a small family company, so we can do that.
“This machine can bag up to 100 tonnes per hour of grass, and maize up to 150 tonnes per hour if you use the recommended 200 horsepower tractor.”
Euro Bagging got its start not in Europe but in Canada. A group of Czech farmers visited Canada in 1996 to investigate bagging technology already in use here. They liked what they saw and subsequently bought six Amity baggers. Fast forward to 2004 and the Euro Bagging company was in full production with its advanced version of silage bagging technology. It recently sold three machines to Ontario dairy producers and expect to have units in Western Canada soon.
The unit on display at the farm show carried a list price of $220,000. Other models start at $180,000.
