A Bale Wrapper is a device that can turn bales of Hay directly into bales of Silage. It can pick up bales from the fields, wrap them in plastic, and instantly ferment them. This allows near-instant creation of Silage, which can be sold for high value or used in Cow feed.
There is only one Bale Wrapper available in the base game. It only works with Round Hay Bales.
List of Bale Wrappers[]
| Wrapper | Price (€) |
Maintenance (€ / day) |
Capacity (Bales) |
Bale Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
38,000 | 60 | 1 | Round Hay |
Overview[]
Silage is the single most valuable commodity in the base game, selling at a price of around $1,600 per liter. However, the normal production process for Silage requires a lot of work, chopping base materials, transporting them to a Fermentation Bunker, and compacting them. Furthermore, there is a 12-hour waiting period for Silage to ferment in the bunker.
There is, however, an alternative way to produce Silage - by fermenting individual Hay bales. This method may require some work as well, but produces Silage near-instantly, and overall may be quite a bit easier than the normal production method.
This is where Bale Wrappers come in. The Bale Wrapper is a machine designed to pick up individual bales of Hay, wrap them in plastic, and ferment them into Silage. A single, low-cost machine can do all of this work on its own.
Of course, to produce Hay Bales, you will need a Mower, a and a Round Baler (and an optional Windrower and/or Bale Loader to speed things up), all of which must be purchased and used separately. Nonetheless, once the bales have been created, transforming them into Silage with the Bale Wrapper is both quick and efficient work. The profits from this venture can be quite surprising.
The Bale Wrapper can pick up its own Hay bales from the field. The only Wrapper available in the base game will only work with Round Hay Bales, and will refuse to pick up Square Bales. Once a bale has been picked up, the Baler will automatically wrap it up in plastic sheets. Once this short process is complete, the Baler can eject the wrapped bale, which now contains Silage, and can be used in place of Silage for any application, including selling it.
Turning a Hay bale into a Silage bale increases its value by more than 400%, if sold for profit. Alternatively, a Silage bale can be used directly as Cow feed, or as part of a Total Mixed Ration, to increase Cow productivity.
Creating Round Hay Bales[]
The only Bale Wrapper in the game, the Ursus Z-586, can only work with Round Hay Bales. It will not work with any other material, nor with Square Bales.
Therefore, before you can use a Bale Wrapper, you must first create Round Hay Bales. This process involves several steps, which are summarized below:
- Mow a sufficient quantity of Grass, using a Mower. This will leave Loose Grass on the ground, scattered on a wide area.
- Run a Tedder over the Loose Grass, to turn it into Dried Grass.
- (Optional) Run a Windrower over the grass, to collect it into narrow trails. This can be done before or after the tedding, and makes the next step easier.
- Collect the Dried Grass with a Round Baler. Remember to use a Round Baler for this task, since the Bale Wrapper cannot work with Square Bales.
At the end of this process, you'll end up with several Hay Bales on the field. You can leave them there for now.
Using the Bale Wrapper[]
The Bale Wrapper has a Drawbar (Ball), and can be attached to nearly any vehicle in the game. It can also be activated and used by any vehicle that can tow it, including even the Lizard PiQup.
The Bale Wrapper's arm must be extended for it to work. When extended, the arm will automatically pick up any valid bale that comes within a few meters of it (Round Hay Bales only, in the case of the Ursus Z-586). The arm will then place the bale on the machine's rotating platform.
As soon as the bale is on the platform, it will begin to rotate. A small contraption holding a roll of plastic sheets will begin to quickly wrap the bale in plastic. This process takes around 15 seconds, and the machine will refuse to pick up any more bales until it has concluded.
Once the bale is fully wrapped, the machine will wait for a command to unload it. You can still drive the machine around at this point, if you wish to take the bale manually to someplace else. When the "unload" button is pressed, the machine will drop the bale into a metal shovel at the back, and will then tip that shovel to dump the bale onto the field. The bale will be standing on its flat side on the ground. This concludes the wrapping process. The bale of Hay has been transformed into a bale of Silage. It is now white in color, and easily distinguishable from other bales.
The Bale Wrapper can now pick up another bale immediately.
Collecting the Bales[]
The Bale Wrapper can be used to move the bales it wraps to their intended destination (usu. the Cow Pasture or the Biogas Plant), since it can hold on to the wrapped bale until given the command to unload. However, this is very inefficient - you can only carry one bale at a time.
A preferable option is to collect as many bales as possible with a Bale Loader, and transport them en-masse. You'll need to use a Bale Loader that can work with Round Bales. There is one such Bale Loader in the game, the Ursus T-127, which can pick up 8 Round Bales before it needs to go and unload them.
The last option, which may or may not be the least desirable, is to pick up the Silage bales with a Front Loader, and putting it on a Bale Trailer for transport.
Using Silage Bales[]
- Main article: Silage (Farming Simulator 15)
The most straightforward use for Silage bales is to sell them directly for profit, at the Biogas Plant. This is done by dumping the bale into the Fliegl Receptacles at the plant, using a Front Loader or similar device. Each bale is equal to 6,423 liters of Silage when used this way. Since a ton of Silage is worth around $1,600, a single bale can be worth roughly $10300 - a far greater value than the value of a Hay bale.
Alternatively, Silage bales can be used in Cow feeding, but require additional machinery to do so. The bale can be fed directly to Cows by dumping it into a Bale Shredder, and then dumping the shredded silage into the feeding trough. This increases Cow productivity levels by a good margin. For even better results, Silage can be mixed with Hay, and possibly with Straw, to create Total Mixed Ration. TMR can be dumped into the feeding trough to give a large boost to Cow productivity, potentially to 100%. If used either as direct feed or for creating TMR, a bale of Silage is equal to only 4,000 liters.