The five jobs, and what each one needs
| Task | Handling frequency | Dominant wear | What matters most |
|---|---|---|---|
| Threshing floor / drying area | Daily through the season | Abrasion from below | Size, and accepting it is a consumable |
| Harvested produce stack | Several times a day during loading | Handling and edge wear | Ease of one-person handling |
| Implement / tractor cover | Once per season | Sun and wind over months | Generous sizing and secure anchoring |
| Ground sheet under a stack | Once per stack | Ground abrasion and moisture | Treated as sacrificial |
| Standing crop protection | Emergency, unpredictable | Wind load | Availability and speed of deployment |
Size before weight
Almost every farm covering failure traces back to a sheet that did not reach. A cover that stops at the edge of a grain stack leaves the sides exposed to driven rain, and driven rain is what damages produce. Before considering GSM, calculate what you actually need to cover.
Measure the base footprint
Length and width of the stack, heap or equipment at its widest.
Add the height on each side
If the cover must reach the ground, add roughly the stack height to each dimension twice — once for each side.
Add an anchoring margin
You need material on the ground to weigh down or stake. Add at least half a metre all round.
Round up
A 3 m × 3 m base stacked a metre high needs a sheet nearer 6 m × 6 m than 3 m × 3 m.
Moisture comes from below as well as above
Covering produce that is sitting on damp ground can trap moisture as effectively as rain adds it. Where a stack will stand for more than a day or two, a ground sheet underneath is often as important as the cover on top. Expect that ground sheet to wear far faster — it is doing the abrasive work so the cover does not have to.
Anchoring in open ground
Fields do not come with tie-down points. Plan the anchoring before you buy, because a cover that lifts in wind protects nothing and usually destroys itself in the process.
- Run a rope through all the eyelets and stake the rope, rather than tying each eyelet separately — this shares the load instead of concentrating it.
- Use weights along the ground edge where staking is not possible.
- Slope the cover so water runs off one side; standing water on a flat cover is heavy and finds every weak point.
- Anchor the windward edge first and work across.
On GSM for farm use
Frequently handled covers favour lighter sheets that one person can manage across a field, and season-long covers justify heavier ones. Get the size right first either way.
Written by the Double Kissan team at Ashoka Poly Laminators Pvt. Ltd., Bareilly. Last reviewed November 2026.