Producing wool to budget using the Measure as You Grow approach : woolproducer experience

Abstract

In 2000, seven woolproducers farming in the Kojonup region of Western Australia ran trials to begin to explore a 'Measure as you Grow' approach for managing wool production. The woolproducers in this project nominated the target fibre diameter, staple length and staple strength that they wanted the flock to achieve at shearing in 12 months. For each flock, a single staple was cut from a random sample of 20 sheep every month. The average fibre diameter of pooled 2 mm snippets cut from the base of each staple was plotted against average staple length to build a picture of the monthly variation in fibre diameter; a running picture of the fibre diameter profile along staples. Using this approach the woolgrowers can detect real movements in fibre diameter of about 1 micron (least significant difference in fibre diameter between months is 0.8 microns at 95% confidence level). Estimates of pasture feed on offer (FOO, kg DM/ha) and pasture growth rate (PGR, kg DM/day) were used to estimate the average feedintake of flocks each month. As the season progressed and both FOO and PGR increased a range of methods were used to increase grazing pressure to manage feed intake and fibre diameter change. At shearing, the average wool characteristics of 25 g midside samples and greasy fleece weights from a random sample of 50 sheep from each flock were used to estimate the production. The method used to restrict feed intake of flocks over winter and spring varied from strip grazing through managing stocking rate to maintain a constant amount of FOO to running large flocks in a tight rotation. In all cases the managed flocks produced more wool per ha that was of lower FD and higher staple strength than controls or previous experience with the same class of sheep. This paper presents 3 of the 7 case studies that demonstrate the wide range of management strategies used.