Thursday, March 28, 2024

Warning: keep up wool quality

Avatar photo
Sheep farmers must maintain wool quality while also producing meat, award-winning farmer Simon Paterson, who is concerned producers are being told not to worry about the prickle factor, says.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

His and wife Sarah’s recent win in the national ewe hogget competition was the latest in a shedful of sheep industry prizes for the Maniototo family.

The 2054ha Armidale near Ranfurly runs Merino and halfbreds in association with Simon’s parents, Allan and Eris, who farm nearby. 

Paterson said fine-wool growers should be wary of talk that blending takes care of deficiencies like a prickly feeling in garments.

“I’m pretty concerned that people are saying you’re just a commodity that you bundle into a bale for a blend. 

“I heard a person saying prickle factor isn’t a relevant trait. Well, if you go back to garments that prickle people’s skin …”

It was important for Merino to keep its high wool value and to be competitive as a meat sheep. 

Sheep farmers had to respond better to synthetic proteins than strong wool did to synthetic carpets, he said.

Armidale was famous for its fleece but it wasn’t all about the clip. 

The Merino wool was usually 18.5 to 19 microns and the halfbreds added to the meat production without compromising their wool returns.

The combination was important because dry conditions would force them to sell stock on the store market if everything was Merino.

To keep the dual-purpose element in the flock Armidale was working on a three-quarter bred – one quarter Romney and three-quarters Merino. 

The family enjoyed entering A&P shows and producer competitions but breeding was always about producing sound commercial animals, he said.

They were now achieving about 120% lambing with 90% of the ewes mated rearing lambs at tailing. 

Their wool agent, PGG Wrightson, said the wether lambs were achieving growth rates that allowed them to be killed before winter while the ewes led the industry for wool weights.

Norway’s Devold wants to put an Armidale farm label on its garments after featuring the Patersons’ young children in a promotional video.

Paterson said he was jittery about the idea but relented once he realised he wouldn’t have to be the star of the show. 

“I pulled the boys out of kindy. They’re a bit more photogenic than me.”

The family tends to think in generational terms, having been at Armidale since the 1880s. 

Dad Allan, of the fourth generation, continues to be a lynchpin as wool classer and uncle George is on the farm too. 

Paterson was keen to correct a verbal slip about George at the ewe hogget field day: “He’s not half a labour unit. He’s a 100% labour unit that’s here 50% of the time.”

Jokes aside, Paterson said the family was working on a succession plan for the property over the next few years.

Meantime, Armidale would continue to operate from twin bases: Simon and Sarah’s place on Puketoi-Highfield Road and Allan and Eris’ block a few kilometres to the north.

The Puketoi-Highfield unit had 550ha of oversown summer run country, 1300ha of flat to rolling cultivatable dryland and 165ha in irrigation. 

It grew about 130ha of ryecorn for winter feed and 70ha of straight lucerne. Most of the dryland consisted of a lucerne-cocksfoot mix.

The station wintered 4500 breeding ewes – 1000 in the Merino stud, 1100 halfbreds and 2400 commercial Merinos. 

A quarter of the breeding flock was two-tooths and about 3000 hoggets spent the winter there. Of that number, about 1200 were replacement ewe hoggets and 300 were ram hoggets.

This year the farm wintered 100 R2 heifers and steers but there was no fixed cattle policy. It ran trading stock and numbers depended on the season and returns.

 

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading