Material reflecting sunlight useful in agriculture and method for obtaining same

A reflecting material that can be used in the field of cultivation in order to increase the amount of solar radiation received by plants or to modify the quality of the solar radiation, said covering consisting of a plane structure, of great length compared with its width, comprising reflecting slats (1) juxtaposed side by side in the width direction and held together by a yarn network (2), characterized in that:

• said network (2) consists of a knitted fabric, made on a warp knitting machine with frontal weft insertion, in a net-type pattern from three plies of warp yarns (10, 11, 12) distributed separately to the needles by means of three guide bars (BI, BII, BIII) working in such a way that:
• the yarns (10) of the front bar (BI) form parallel spaced-apart wales of chain stitches;
• the yarns (11) of the central bar (BII) form transverse links (4) in a predetermined sequence between two wales (3) of chain stitches, each yarn (11) meshing in a chain stitch pattern or simply being weft-inserted during said sequence;
• and
• the yarns (12) of the rear bar (BIII) are distributed in a weft pattern and are positioned in a straight manner in the longitudinal direction in the central part of the loops;
• the yarns (10, 11, 12) used in the construction of said knitted support fabric are synthetic monofilaments;
• the reflecting slats (1) are weft-inserted over the entire width of the knitted fabric and are held captive in each course of loops, forming, between two consecutive wales of chain stitches, a plurality of randomly oriented reflecting minifacets.