Objective measurements of wool has seen enormous improvements in the national clip, including at Gavin Missen’s Gippsland farm.
The passionate woolgrower has been farming at Eleanora at Woodside for more than 50 years, and he said during the time, his wool has got a lot better, finer and softer.
The 72-year-old said the proliferation of objective measurements was the biggest change he’d experienced in the industry.
He farms on 380 hectares, including a 48.5ha out-paddock, and earlier this year had 2517 adult sheep, rams and weaners; 99 Angus cows to calve this year plus 39 yearling heifers and a few steers.
“The property isn’t suitable to run all sheep or all cattle,” he said.
Mr Missen said he could look after these stock numbers by himself, with casual labour as needed.
The Merino flock is of Bindawarra bloodlines, and Mr Missen said since he started buying Bindawarra rams in 2002, the flock’s wool had got softer and brighter and he found it was denser and thus was heavier cutting.
This year, Mr Missen completed his 54th shearing and the adult sheep averaged 19.8 micron. Adult sheep cut an average of 6.39kg/head and the average value was $72.59/head when the wool was sold at Melbourne’s auction on in late February.
The Merino hoggets and weaners’ wool hadn’t been tested when Stock & Land visited, but last year the Merino weaners’ fleeces averaged 16.6M.
Merino rams are put out in the last week of February, so the ewes start lambing in the last week of July. The about 170 cull Merino ewes – picked out mainly for off-type wool – are joined to Dorset rams from the Queen’s Birthday weekend.
“I keep the best of the ewes until they are 6.5 years-old – and that’s only a handful. You’ve got to make space for next generation.”
Elders’ district wool manager Mal Nicholls classes every ewe to be joined every year and also helps with ram selection.
Mr Missen said he seeks out rams with good frames, feet, head, broad back, spring of rib and “a good jacket of wool on them”.
For many years, Mr Missen had the ewes lamb from the first week of June, but in the early 1990s, he lost a lot of lambs in cold snaps and in 1994, dropped lambing back three weeks. He’s found the ewes now rear better lambs.
Mr Missen said using worm capsules, since they came on the market, had also boosted lamb and wool quality. He said the wool now had better tensile strength because the worm capsules addressed the mid-staple weakness he was getting.
Adult Merinos are shorn in mid-January and the Merino weaners and hoggets are shorn in April, to let them grow out more since lambing was pushed back.
Mr Missen said he usually had to start feeding out by the end of January or early February because the quality of the grass tended to go off at Woodside. He gives pellets to Merino weaners and grown sheep get barley too.
And while Mr Missen is passionate about growing wool, he said his ability to continue doing so depended on being able to get shearers and shed hands.
