40 | Winning fleece for fifth generation farm XxxxxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxxxx Merino Ewes on Summer run country. Simon & Sarah Paterson (Overall Winner Merino Clip of the Year 2022). Russell Fredric It may be a hard road to find the perfect merino fleece, but Armidale Merino Stud has come incredibly close. The stud won the Supreme Champion Fleece ribbon in the Central Otago A & P Show in February, scoring a near perfect 98 out of a possible 100 points for a 19.2 micron fleece entered. Armidale is farmed by Simon and his wife Sarah who are the fifth generation on the property; they have two young sons, Hugo and Bede. The winning fleece also came out tops in the fleece wool stud classes, but that’s far from all, Simon explains. “This season we’ve had fleeces in the Ranfurly, Omakau, Upper Clutha show and the Golden Fleece and we’ve won supreme fleece in every one of those shows.” “We are striving to have quality fleeces across our whole flock while also concentrating on productive traits. We want every sheep to perform to its utmost, but we still want to a have the ability of having that individual fleece that can win at a show, as well for what we are trying to breed for.” Genetically, Armidale has been breeding for low coefficient of variation which means the lower the variation in the fibres the better, and a fleece that handles “really well”, is very white and can handle rainfall along with being low in vegetable matter. “We are aiming for it to be around 18.5 to 19.5 micron with a low CV.” About half Armidale’s wool clip, comprising 250 bales, is supplied to Devold Norway who want the longest possible staple length and pay a premium of $2 a kilogram for it “so we are really pushing our lengths”. During the past five seasons there has been a focus on increasing parasite resistance/reducing faecal egg counts and dag scores and to reduce inputs while maintaining production. Armidale’s ram hoggets went 100 days during the past season without being drenched, and this included being run on short-irrigated pasture for a period in order to maximise the challenge to them. The hoggets were then individually sampled and weighed to see which sire groups performed best under that pressure. This approach is driven by market forces as well as the diminishing efficacy of drenches. “The companies that make the drenches are indicating that there’s no new drenches on the MEAT & WOOL » Armidale Merino Stud horizon so once we’re finished the ones we’ve got we’ve got very limited options.” Armidale covers 2000 hectares and carries 3300 merino breeding ewes of which a third are stud recorded, 1200 half bred ewes and winters 2500 merino hoggets and 500 half bred hoggets, plus around 200 trading cattle. PREMIUM NEW ZEALAND MERINO CLOTHING SUSTAINABLE CHOICES Devold NZ: Rewarding NZ growers for producing exceptional Merino wool www.devoldnewzealand.co.nz PH: CRAIG SMITH 027 203 4454 | March 2023 Peter 027 433 3522 | (03) 448 6378 | www.peterlyonshearing.co.nz Servicing wool growing clients in Southland, Otago & South Canterbury PETER LYON SHEARING Last year’s lambing percentage was 131% ewes mated to lambs weaned over all stock classes. Within that the stud ewes lambed at 149%. Simon attributes the difference to the genetic progress of the stud not having flowed on to the commercial ewes so far. The past season got off to a challenging start but has finished extremely well. “Lambs really battled to get going early on, and then the summer turned really hot and dry, and we got to the point of nearly feeding out towards the end of summer, and then it rained. “We’ve had the most amazing autumn, probably the best that my father can remember.”
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