A single hailstorm can strip an orchard's entire marketable crop in minutes. Anti-hail netting is the only insurance that stops the damage at the source.
For a grower of apples, pears, cherries or stone fruit, hail is the risk that keeps people awake at night. A short storm can bruise or strip a season's fruit, and the financial hit lands all at once. Anti-hail netting is the standard answer — and unlike chemical or insurance approaches, it stops the damage before it happens.
Hailstones bruise fruit, split skins and knock fruit off the tree entirely. Even light bruising can downgrade premium fruit to juice or processing grade, erasing most of the value. Branch and shoot damage also reduces the following season's crop, so the true cost of one storm often spreads over two years.
A hail net does not try to stop a stone in mid-air. Instead, its fine mesh and elasticity decelerate the hailstone, bleeding off the impact energy before it reaches the fruit. The net flexes on its support cables and returns to shape, ready for the next impact. That is why a flexible, mono+mono HDPE construction outperforms a rigid screen.
Hail net is almost always installed as an overhead system — a grid of cables suspended on posts, with the net draped and clipped on top. The cables carry the load, so the net itself only has to absorb impacts, not bear its own weight across the whole span.
For orchard protection, a fine 3–8 mm mesh at 45–60 gsm is the standard. The fine mesh also reduces wind and bird damage as a useful side benefit. Ask your supplier to confirm the mesh is small enough for the typical hail size in your region.
Growers have a few options for hail, and it helps to compare them honestly. Crop insurance pays out after the damage but never replaces the lost premium market. Hail cannons are controversial and widely considered unreliable. Overhead netting is the only method that physically stops the hailstones, which is why it has become the default in hail-prone fruit regions around the world.
Against the cost of losing even one crop, a properly installed hail net system typically pays for itself within a few seasons. It also makes harvest planning predictable and can reduce wind and bird losses at the same time — one structure, several forms of protection.
A fine 3–8 mm mesh catches most damaging hailstones while still letting enough light through for healthy fruit. The exact size depends on the hail typical to your region.
A UV-stabilized mono+mono HDPE hail net typically lasts 5–8 years when properly tensioned on a cable system.
No — the fine mesh lets through enough light for normal coloring and ripening, and it protects the fruit surface from bruising. Many growers report better pack-out because the fruit arrives unmarked.
Yes. Fine hail mesh already excludes most birds, so one overhead system often protects against both threats without a second layer.
Fine 3–8 mm mesh, 45–60 gsm, mono+mono HDPE, installed on a cable grid — that is the spec that protects high-value fruit. Send us your orchard size and we will help you size the system.
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