Basic Situation
Nelson, located in the middle of New Zealand’s South Island, has pleasant scenery and light.
Due to the sunny weather (this is often the sunniest area in the country), strong temperature changes help optimize the quality of the fruit, while sufficient high sunshine hours make the fruit purer.
The annual sunlight reaches 2405hr and the yearly precipitation is 970mm, which is suitable for apple planting.
The warm summer climate and the cool nights of autumn can make the new season of apples bright in color and full in taste.
With the blessing of good weather conditions, it has become the second-largest apple-producing area in New Zealand.
Apple is an important local economic activity, and the prospects for the apple season are excellent.
However, a sudden hailstorm in 2020 caused heavy losses to the local orchard. The hail smashed large areas of fruit trees.
Boxing Day 2020 finished off a brutal year for many orchards in parts of Tasman as the hailstorm struck, destroying crops, including hops, grapes, kiwifruit, apples and pears.
As a result, the customer found that we wanted to build a hail protection system for his apple orchard, including
- Leno Hail Netting
- Hail Netting Clips
- Hail Netting Wire Clips
- Elastic Cord
Customer Demand Analysis
Hail damages your fruits and vegetables during the harvest season, causing a lot of crop damage and putting your business at risk.
After receiving the customer’s inquiry, we carefully analyzed the demand,
- Farm size: 100ha
- Crops planted: apples
Customer Pain Point
Hail Disaster is a destructive weather imagination that damages and destroys their fruits and crops in what should be the harvest season. This has caused serious economic losses.
Customer Requirements
Hail is a destructive weather phenomenon. It can destroy crops and cause significant financial losses within the agriculture industry.
The Client wants to build a hail protection system, hoping to be used in an atmospheric environment with high ultraviolet radiation like New Zealand for 8 to 10 years.
Hail Netting prevents significant financial losses and protects crops.
Farmers no longer need to worry about the potential of losing their crops to hail.
EyouAgro Solution
Hail Netting is made from polypropylene, which is woven into a net form and provides quick installation.
It has excellent UV protection and lasts up to 10 years in most situations.
Product Solutions
According to the customer’s needs, it requires a service life of 8-10 years.
After comparing the advantages and disadvantages of various products
We chose Leno Hail Netting as the main material of the hail net system and used columns and steel wire frames to form the support structure of the Hail Netting System Structure Instead of adopting the Drape hail netting scheme.
The main reason is that,
Drape hail netting is directly covered with fruit trees and hung up before the fruit season.
Then take it down before the harvest season. This results in repeated work that requires repeated hanging and storage every year. It will cause high labor costs.
And directly covering the suspension will cause too high a shading rate, which is not very powerful for apple coloring and results. Apples need more sunlight during the fruit growth stage.
We suggest to our customers that Drape Hail Netting is more suitable for Seedless citrus cultivation while preventing bee pollination.
However, Leno Hail Netting has higher strength and transparent color.
Under the 2.8x 8.5mm mesh structure composed of Leno structure with a monofilament diameter of 0.032mm( 700Den), it can provide sunlight transmittance of more than 93%, and reach the best balance point for hail protection and sunlight irradiation.
At the same time, a more demanding condition
As New Zealand’s ultraviolet radiation exceeds 160KLY every year, the customer’s service life requirement of 8-10 years is very high,
This means the product has to withstand 1600KLY ultraviolet radiation for 10 years, and the product intensity cannot be lower than the original 50%.
The original UV formulation system suitable for Tinuvin 783 in central Europe will no longer be applicable.
We need anti-aging additives to delay the degradation of polyethylene plastic products in areas with large annual solar irradiation energy, so we have switched to a higher-grade composite anti-UV formula based on Chimassorb 944.
The following is the test data showing that the product’s strength retention rate is maintained above 82% after the 5080hr test.
The moment the test data came out, the customer was very satisfied.
Finally, directly confirm the first phase of the order contract 4×40 ‘HQ for nearly 40ha (3x40HQ Leno hail Netting 1×40 ‘HQ Hail Netting Accessories)
Considering the cost economy, we recommend customers purchase Support Poles and wire locally.
Project Completion
The customer received the goods in September 2021 and immediately started the installation.
Finally, after two months of installation, the installation will be completed, with the harvest season expected to begin in February.
Review and Summary
The whole project was discussed in March 2021. We started with hail net accessories.
The customer combined some of the mesh clips commonly used in the market but was far from what he expected. Therefore, it was finally decided to develop a complete set of supporting accessories independently. After countless brainstorming, the function and prototype of the product were finally determined.
With the help of a 3D printer, we first made a prototype product, matched it again to modify it, and finally shaped and made the mold.
Hail net products: The main difficulties in the selection of anti-aging agent UV and leno hail net production are the very low production cycle.
In the end, with the team’s unremitting efforts, the delivery was on schedule.
Looking forward to cooperating with this customer again.
If you have any request in agriculture Protection, Pls do not hesitate to contact us and discuss your solution.
