GLOSSARY PROTECTIVE CANOPY

Initially the idea of the net canopy over the landfill was discussed with Netpro as they are a local company and at the time Netpro was considering advancing into this area (protection of landfills). Netpro assisted Council with a very reasonable price which allowed the project to proceed. At the time the landfill site had problems with wind blown litter and a solution to fully prevent this problem was not easy until the canopy was suggested.

Following construction of the canopy over the landfill the litter problem ceased, which provides for a much tidier site, less complaints from surrounding properties, and less maintenance costs to collect litter on site and on surrounding properties. The canopy also provides some protection from birds accessing the rubbish and dropping it elsewhere.

The only issues experienced with the canopy relate to machinery and contact with the canopy. When this damage has occurred we received prompt service from Netpro staff who attended to the repairs almost immediately.

Landfill sites are now required to be operated under a licence issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and this requires that it be maintained in a tidy state. The old terminology of ‘dump’ no longer applies as these sites must be well controlled environmentally.

The Council is currently constructing a Resource Recovery Centre on the site and this will further provide environmental controls on the site and what is able to be recycled and what may go to landfill. Once completed the site will be easier to operate and maintain.

Thank you for the chance to provide positive review for a very worthwhile system.

In 2003, Golden Valley Orchards were offered the opportunity to work with the NCEA (National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture) and NetPro Pty Ltd on a research project evaluating the effectiveness of (among others) NetPro’s dam-covers.

Renato says of his first impressions of the idea: “Evaporation is a pretty big problem – I thought it was definitely a good idea. The only problem was the expense: the cover cost two hundred thousand but we received a subsidy of eighty thousand.”

The dam in question is the main dam for Golden Valley Orchards, holding some twenty-five million gallons (133ML), has a surface area of eight acres (3.3ha). The Golden Valley Orchards extend over 200 acres (83ha), irrigated from this dam and a couple of other smaller dams.

The dam cover was completed by November 2003. Five years down the track, Renato says “We are very happy with it (the cover). It reduces evaporation losses by over 90%, so you could say there was hardly any evaporation.” This is tribute indeed, for according to the Bureau of Meteorology maps, the Stanthorpe region’s average annual evaporation is higher than its average annual rainfall (evaporation 1600mm/year; rainfall 1000mm/year).

The net outcome for Golden Valley Orchards is “we have saved so much water that it’s made a difference between having enough water and not”, says Renato. He continues: “What do we lose here? Over meter a year? Look at that over four years: four meters over the surface area of the dam … that’s a lot of water!”

The original trial results have been reported by NCEA in 2005. An abridged copy of the report is available in our Support section.

As major investors in the Australian horticulture industry, Rewards Group Ltd needs to ensure maximized returns on all funds invested, particularly in orchard infrastructure. Accordingly, our choice of contractors is critical to the final success of any project.

At Rewards we recognise that NetPro Pty Ltd is clearly the industry leader when it comes to protective canopies. They have the best quality product, and a reputation to match. Rewards Group is now a major client of Netpro, having recently covered over 90 hectares of stonefruit orchards at Childers, and we are also finalizing new canopies at our Kumbia orchard.

Canopy construction is still on-going, and we are 100% satisfied with the projects completed for us in the three years to date. The quality of finish, the robust engineering … it’s all first-class. Our choice & trust in NetPro has been well and truly vindicated by the finished results. We consider the canopies to be a serious & integral factor in the protection of our fruit — consequently it’s been a high component of our investment in these projects.

Apart from the known protection features (from fruit-bats, birds and hail), we are capitalising on the valuable bonus that the canopy structure creates a controlled microclimate, resulting in wind reduction (with less fruit-rub), more stable growing temperatures, and enhanced colour. All in all, it creates a safe & ideal environment for the production of our fruit.

As a fruitgrower myself, I have worked closely with Netpro over many years covering my own orchards, so already had plenty of previous experience with their highly professional standards.

I’m writing to thank you for your excellent product. We covered our ten year old lychee patch with the Fruit Fly net using steel post/poly pipe tunnels. The result has been extraordinary – the first time we have ever been able to harvest clean, mature fruit from these trees! The feeling under the nets is one of complete peace – protected from all predatory insects and birds.

Until now we ate lychees as half-green, tart fruit in order to rescue some from the lorikeets, crows, macadamia nut borers, wasps, elephant beetles, fruit flies and all manner of sucking insects only ever seen at lychee harvest time. As no fruit is being damaged there are no juice or rotting fruit aromas to attract these pests either. It is clear to us now – to ensure a harvest from any fruit tree it needs to be covered with this net.

I had the pleasure of dealing with Justin, Michael and the Netpro team during construction of a new facility for Autonexus, in Eagle Farm Queensland.

The requirement was for 30,000m2 of hail net installed over two stages. From the very early design and negations to contract management, installation and importantly post construction the staff and contractors were at all times professional and responsive to the specific site challenges that we faced.

The project was completed on time, defect period commitments were honoured and the whole experience left all stakeholders impressed beyond expectation, especially after seeing how the canopy performed in the November hail event. I have no hesitation in putting this testimonial forward, and I would recommend Netpro for any suitable requirements you may have.

I can’t believe it’s been over 9 years since Netpro installed the first Hail canopy at our facility here at the Port of Brisbane.

With this in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to thank yourself and your company for your continued support and services provided. We have been extremely please with the overall performance of the canopies and also thankful for the lack of general maintenance required on the canopies.

We look forward to working with you again in the future. Keep up the good work.

Mazda Australia has been the leading full line importer of motor vehicles into Australia for nearly a decade. Selling over 100,000 vehicles annually, our business requires multiple vehicle storage and logistic solutions nationally.

To this end Mazda Australia has a requirement that all of our vehicles stored at any of our Vehicle Distribution facilities need to be under a hail net. Mazda has a long term relationship with Netpro and a strong relationship with the local Netpro team headed by Michael Pradella and Justin Murray.

Our new state of the art transport, storage and logistics facility in Pinkenba, Qld was recently developed wth support from the Netpro team. Late last year we again utilised Netpro’s experience to assist with our facility at Port Kembla, NSW which had been impacted by storm activity resulting in significant damage to our existing hail net.

I would have no hesitations in recommending Netpro as a supplier of hail net and Shade cloth protection solutions.

Discovering Net-Pro has been valuable for JBS Five Rivers Cattle Feeding!! As we were considering options to rebuild pens and shade structures this past year, finding a comprehensive solution that fulfilled a wide range of needs for the feed yard seemed almost impossible. Those needs included increased height for airflow & drying, eliminating poles in the middle of the pens to improve pen surface conditions and facilitate cleaning with heavy equipment, and better shade coverage with less material – and of course this needed to be a more cost effective solution than traditional shade designs.

Fortunately while visiting some yards in Australia we discovered the Net-Pro technology. Very quickly we were in contact with the Net-Pro team and arranged a visit to our facilities in the U.S — the rest is history. We recently completed a 16k head renovation using their technology, materials, and expertise. The Net Pro team provided flawless service designing the shade structure, bidding the project, and coordinating delivery of materials. In addition they spent a month on-site assisting and training our team and were a joy to work with!

I’m excited about this discovery and JBS is sold on the quality, functionality, service and value of this company and their technology and would highly recommend them to other cattle feeding entities!

For over 50 years, Patrick Autocare has continued to set the pace in Australia with its integrated service offering of processing, storage and distribution of motor vehicles. Responsible for the transportation of more than one million vehicle movements each year, Patrick Autocare has a storage capacity of 65,000 motor vehicles through on-wharf and off-wharf facilities.

Our operational and market environment dictates that majority of these vehicle storage facilities be protected by hail mesh structures, and in this regard, our very successful and ongoing working relationship with Netpro Commercial Constructions has proven invaluable.

Justin Murray and the Netpro team have been instrumental in working together with Patrick Autocare to develop our national storage facilities, and we have found Netpro’s service and product offering to be industry leading, innovative and professional.

Their consistency in service delivery and after establishment maintenance, has led to Netpro Commercial Constructions being our preferred national supplier of hail mesh requirements over the last 9 years, including all hail mesh works at our major Greenfield development sites across New South Wales, Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria. We have been highly impressed by the new pitched canopy designs constructed at these facilities, in terms of hail load performance and operational efficiencies gained as a result of improved supporting structure designs.

Justin and his team have conducted themselves professionally and safely at all times when operating on our sites, and it is testament to how they run their daily business that this working relationship extends to our operational managers and site teams across the country, whom have an excellent working relationship with all levels of the Netpro team.

I would have no hesitation in recommending Netpro as a supplier.

We liked the product NetPro offered, quality was our main criteria. The option of wooden posts was an important feature because of the highly-corrosive conditions in the feedlot environment. We were able to work through the construction plan and the materials options during the quoting process.

After construction was completed, we had a couple of small issues, which NetPro worked through with us – the backup service was very good, and we are really happy with the result.

The most important outcome we sought was the provision of shade without the associated increase in pen maintenance costs. The NetPro product provides adequate shade with manageable pen maintenance. (We also have iron shade structures on site, so we can compare the two types very easily). The main advantage of the Netpro shade is that rain is evenly distributed.

I hereby confirm that Netpro Commercial Constructions have been our exclusive supplier of hail mesh structures for over 5 years. During this time, Netpro have installed approximately 10 hectares of mesh across 5 sites, and 4 states. They have also undertaken several insurance repairs, and maintenance programs. I have found Justin and his team to be experts in their field, as well as being very easy to deal with.

They have offered advice in various scenarios which has lead to the use of different products in high wind locations, and are genuine about findings solutions that save us money as a customer. In addition, I believe all of their projects have been completed on time and within budget.

In testament to Netpro’s relationship as a partner, AutoNexus have not sourced quotes from alternative suppliers over the last three years, confident in both the price and quality of work that Netpro will deliver as our preferred supplier.

In 2017 I moved from Toowoomba to Geham north of Toowoomba. I set up a temporary shade house for my Clivia collection. During the Winter I had a negative 7°C morning and as a result I lost over 250 plants. I called NetPro in Stanthorpe and spoke to Glenn McRae about options to protect my plants. Glen recommended their Frost Cloth Spun-bonded Polypropylene (“fleece”)
White, 30gsm (grams per square metre). This year I had a negative 6.5°C and under the frost cloth cover the temperature remained above zero and I had no damage. Thank you Netpro this is a magnificent product.

Prixcar recently engaged Netpro Canopies to install our latest hail netting canopy in Altona Victoria.
Netpro installed one of their Flat UB3 canopies which is performing very well. We found the team at Netpro to be extremely professional and obliging, they worked in well with our operations and endeavoured to make sure all our requirements were met.

ARK Industrial had a great experience working with NetPro on the Leakes Avenue project. Their team was professional, responsive and worked collaboratively with us throughout the delivery of the works. Given the scale of the project, coordination was important, and NetPro worked closely with our site team to deliver the hail netting installation safely and to a high standard. We’re very pleased with the completed result and would be happy to work with NetPro again on future projects.