John Deere’s New B-Wrap To Preserve Baled Hay

Dec 18, 2012

The hay bailing process is set to improve with the new John Deere “B-Wrap,” an alternative to indoor storage of large round hay bales. This is according to a release on the John Deere Company website.

Until now, the best storage technique after baling hay was to simply put the large round bales indoors, a practice that often leads to losses in quantity and lowered nutrient quality. The John Deere B-Wrap protects bales with a patented material that features Tama SCM Technology™. This material successfully prevents rain, snow, and ground moisture from gathering within the bale. Tama SCM Technology also possesses pores that allow existing water vapor to escape from within the bales.

Laura Cobb, senior marketing representative for the John Deere Ottumwa Works, says in the release, “B-Wrap protects bales much better than net, significantly reducing storage losses and maintaining nutrient quality of hay. B-Wrap does cost a few dollars more per bale than net wrap, so most hay producers will use B-Wrap mainly to protect their best quality hay, or hay that will be stored for an extended amount of time. Producers involved in our initial field trials reported that hay protected by B-Wrap looked and smelled like the day it was baled, even after spending a winter outside.”

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.