Video of hay wrapping machine
Japanese hay wrapping machine in action. (Via Aquabotic)
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holy cow, is this to bail hay or use as much plastic as possible machine?
I want to sit in that.
Also, that seemed like a lot of material just to protect from moisture. I wonder if that was plastic or something else?
Does that thing wrap presents?
I've seen other round-bale wrappers that use much less plastic.
Soon to be available from an S&M supplier near you.
Amelican style
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=GUT6ukVakEM&feature=related
Perfect for modern day, assembly-line mummy production!!
Will those clever Japanese create a hybrid of this device with origami abilities?
Why have plain, old hay bales when your fields could be full of 1,000's of plastic sheet constructed, hay-filled cranes.
Seems pretty wasteful to me. There's nothing wrong with old style hay bales that aren't wrapped.
Does that thing wrap presents?
Sure, as long as your presents are bales of hay.
would it be more efficient to move all the bails into a moisture controlled room? i mean, all you'd have to do is but it under a roof, maybe a dehumidifier or two.
but then there wouldn't be those large marshmallows all over the countryside.
It's the same as the swedish style.
The wrapping must seal the hay bale so that it can start to ferment, hence the many layers.
You can read more about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensilage
Looks like a fairly standard modern baling machine.
Also note that it is probably not storing hay but making silage. I.e. it is not protecting the hay from moisture, but enclosing the moisture for fermentation.
I, too, was anticipating the machine would stop wrapping before the point of wastefulness arrived.
That sumbich ain't gunna be gettin' wet. I guarantee.
Loganbouchard: I think my whole life has been leading up to having one giant toasted marshmallow that size. :-)
Stuff of nightmares... Remember that lady that got turned into a robot in Superman 3? I still have nightmares about that... and now it is coming true... the cold logic of the machine! ;.;
Indeed, it looks like it'll be used for silage or balage
@henrix, #11: Thanks! That clears up the mystery. For those wondering, see the Wikipedia article on silage and balage.
Sileage is wrapped, not hay.
In a warm, dry climate, hay is fine - you spread it out, it dries, and it's then edible. A lot of the goodness dies off in the drying, but it's still good enough.
In a wet climate, hay won't dry. If you leave the cut grass out, it will rot into the earth. If you let the air into it, it'll rot, all those valuable nutrients turning to inedible slime.
If you keep the air away, it anaerobically degrades into sileage, which is warm and tasty (well, for cows), and full of goodness. You can stick it into sileage pits/silos, but if you lack the money or space, then sileage bags or sileage wrap are your only options.
Wrap uses less plastic than bags, so is both more economical and more environmentally friendly. Compared to the older sileage bags, that's actually a lot less plastic, since it's thinner. Many layers are better for protecting against moisture. Remember you're dropping these things out onto stubble, which would go through thin plastic like a fork into a sausage, let the air in, and give you useless, rotten feed when you came to slice it open.
I might be totally wrong on all this, though. Been a couple decades since I last worked on a farm.
Monet would cry.
That does seem like an excessive amount of plastic. I bet the machine is adjustable, for one thing, and also that the size of a bale of hay varies: a bale somewhat larger would fit in that machine, and would be wrapped more efficiently.
Something about that machine is creepy though. I'm not sure. Maybe it's the way the wrapping looks like bandaging. Can't put my finger on it.
Arg, should have refreshed before posting. Dewi explained why so much plastic is being used.
But not the creepiness.
With some modification, it looks like you could turn that into a Roy Orbison wrapping machine.
http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/orb1.htm
@secret_life_of_plants: Christo would rock it though.
holy shit
http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/karl.htm
(Sha... la... la, dooby wah, dum dum dum, yip yip)
(Fum, sha la la, dooby wah, dum dum dum, yip yip)
that's how my mom changed my diaper when i was a baby.
It intrigues me that Boing Boing has so many commentators who know so much about efficient use of plastic wrap on a farm.
It reminded me of a spider wrapping its prey in silk to eat later.
your point?
My parents live in a rural area, and these devices have become all the rage there. The fields look like packages of giant marshmallows have been dumped on them — but in some communities, it's all about the kids decorating them.
I think of these stories as "TWJ" - Those Wacky Japanese - There's a notion that anything that happens in Japan is completely unique, even if it's something as mundane as a bale wrapper that you could find on many farms all over the world. Just wait for the next 'incredibly lifelike' robot or concept cars feature piece - they have similar technology at US and European shows, but they're just not made by TWJs.
Whenever I see devices like this wrapping large industrial things in plastic (there is a similar device for wrapping shipping pallets) I wonder how long before all that plastic ends up in the Pacific.
Dewi is on the money.
Indeed it is for baleage.
On our farm the wrapper we use spins the bail rather than the spools (I believe ours is of European manufacture). These wrappers have been around for quite some time.
The bail must have two layers of plastic to seal, think giant Tupperware. By using more nutritional bailage rather than dry hay, less feed needs to be processed, which means less fuel burned.
Actually, dry hay is also wrapped like this, just not as much plastic.
Here in very damp land (Northern California coast) sometimes dry hay is baled then lightly wrapped to let any more moisture escape ( to prevent molding) but enough to protect it from the rain so they can be stored outside.
Wahhhhhhhhhhh, that thing uses too much plastic , wahhhhhhhhh. Have any of you been inside a grocery store lately? Think about how many farms there are in the world, and how many bales they have to make. A pretty small amount compared to the billions of snack packs and individually cupped puddings and a million other things we buy, caked in plastic, daily. Get a sense of proportion, please.
Japan takes overpackaging to bizarre levels. I once bought a bunch of individually shrink-wrapped grapes. I didn't really. But two apples in a plastic case, each surrounded by its own little jacket of immortal meshy something? Yup. By comparison, this isn't so bad.
The one my local farmer uses (Shropshire, UK) hangs on the back of a tractor, and spins around the bale as the tractor rolls it by reversing. This seems more elegant to me than having to mount the thing on spinning rollers, but either way, it's pretty cool.
If the UK is ever democratic enough to bring back capital punishment (which I ardently hope is never the case), we should at least do it by shrink-wrapping the villains in one of these. That would be awesome.
Actually, I have a suspicion that support for reinstatement of the death penalty has now dropped below 50%, finally. God Save The Queen!
Dewy, thanks for the explanation of sileage. I never knew. Well, I've never kept cows, but even so.
Samu, shrink wrapping villians sounds so totally Serge Storm.
One thing about silage that y'all city slickers might not know. The run off is pure alcohol. Most silage silos have a drain pipe at the bottom and you can let it out. Watch the cows get shit faced drunk (it's not very tasty for humans).
@8 And you're basing this on your extensive, international farming experience?
waste waste waste.... perhaps if silage silos were used instead the alcohol generated could be used for fuel?
I want to replace the plastic with strawberry fruit roll-up, then sit in the middle and become a strawberry fruit roll-up buddha.
Palindromic 35, you're being silly. We were wondering why it used so much. Dewy explained. It shows a reduction consciousness, to be sure, but no one was whining about it. Your implied accusation of hypocrisy: FAIL.
EcoBore 40: perhaps if silage silos were used instead the alcohol generated could be used for fuel?
And if we painted them with silver paint, they could be silver sileage silos.
And with goofy designs, they could be silly silver sileage silos.
And if we put a cartoon cat on the very top, only it's not the real cartoon cat but a sophisticated machine duplicating him, and even though he's a machine he still has ADHD and needs an unfortunately-banned stimulant medication, and he keeps making wistful noises about not being able to get it, and he's a superhero who can read your mind, but he's actually only the assistant to a more important superhero...
...then we have a Cylert-sighing psychic Cylon Sylvester sidekick on a silly silver sileage silo.
With silt.
And a cyclotron.
And to be fair, SoupIsGoodFood, comment #6 was made before Dewi explained about sileage.
Why's everyone assuming I'm right? I could be wrong about the sileage. Though people who probably know more than me seem to be agreeing, which is probably a good sign.
Worked in an organic factory farm a few decades ago. They had a nice setup. When sileage time came round, they'd bolt wooden partitions into half of the barn, so it became a big silo, 20 ft deep or so. Then they'd line it with plastic, and tip the grass in. Someone (me) would then fork the grass out into a layer and spread feed nuts over it to soak up the moisture as the grass degraded (the moisture's full of goodness). Then we'd cover it over and let it ferment until winter, when one end would be opened and the cows would be let in. They'd have a wall of food!
Had to be careful to push the wall so it sloped each morning, so cows didn't get it falling on them, but other than that, worked well.
The off-spill of that, and the muck pile, drained into pipes that went under the sileage field, which made the grass grow especially lushly over the pipes, and gave great harvest without fertiliser or work.
It was an "organic" farm, but that just means the calves were given the minimum drugs to keep them healthy, and the meat sold for a bit more. They were still kept in tiny stalls until well after they weaned.
Few things are as lousy as scraping the caked crap off the stalls with a trowel once they've gone to be veal. On balance, I prefer being a programmer.